Panel Set To Advance Mukasey

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The New York Sun

WASHINGTON — A Senate committee prepared to advance Judge Michael Mukasey’s nomination to be the nation’s 81st attorney general after two key Democrats pledged to support him because he promised to enforce a law against waterboarding if one was enacted by Congress.

However, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy, said Judge Mukasey’s assurance that won over Senators Feinstein and Schumer was disingenuous.

“Unsaid, of course, is the fact that any such prohibition would have to be enacted over the veto of this president,” Mr. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, said in remarks prepared for his panel’s vote today to advance Judge Mukasey’s nomination to the full Senate.

Ms. Feinstein and Mr. Schumer’s support for Judge Mukasey was all but certain to give him the majority vote on the committee needed to advance the nomination. Judge Mukasey was expected to win confirmation easily in the full Senate before Thanksgiving.

In tightly choreographed statements of support last week, Ms. Feinstein and Mr. Schumer essentially eliminated the chance that Democrats could kill the nomination in committee.

Many Democrats oppose Judge Mukasey for refusing to say that so-called waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning, is torture and therefore illegal under domestic and international law.

Mr. Schumer, a party leader, said yesterday that a vote for Judge Mukasey, even without a commitment to oppose waterboarding, is still better than the alternative.

“The fact of the matter is, if Mukasey is rejected, we’ll have an acting U.S. attorney (general) who’ll do nothing. So even on the grounds of torture alone, you’re probably better off with Mukasey, who said he’s going to look at it and study it,” Mr. Schumer said.


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