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 Senate Panel to Take Up AG Nomination
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[November 06, 2007]
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Senate committee prepared to advance 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, Sen. Patrick Leahy, said Mukasey's assurance that won over Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer was disingenuous.
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 "Unsaid, of course, is the fact that any such prohibition would have to be enacted over the veto of this president," Leahy, D-Vt., said in remarks prepared for his panel's vote Tuesday to advance Mukasey's nomination to the full Senate.
Feinstein and Schumer's support for Mukasey was all but certain to give him the majority vote on the committee needed to advance the nomination. Mukasey was expected to win confirmation easily in the full Senate before Thanksgiving.
In tightly choreographed statements of support last week, Feinstein and Schumer essentially eliminated the chance that Democrats could kill the nomination in committee.
Many Democrats oppose 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.
Schumer, a party leader, said Monday that a vote for Mukasey, even without a commitment to oppose waterboarding, is still better than the alternative.
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 "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," Schumer said.
The retired federal judge rankled Democrats during his confirmation hearing by saying he was not familiar with the waterboarding technique and could not say whether it was torture.
Mukasey later sought to allay those concerns with a letter calling waterboarding "repugnant."
Legal experts caution that if Mukasey called it torture, that could effectively be an admission that the U.S. engaged in war crimes. It could also commit him to prosecuting U.S. officials even before he takes office.
[Associated Press; By LAURIE KELLMAN]
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
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