The fact that my country is having this conversation brings tears to my eyes. The word "torture" is outside of what I can say of myself, my family, my friends. We abhor these acts by members of our country . We don't know how it has come to be that a US president and this administration says and does what they do. I want to scream, strike out, be so angry with them all that they will disappear. My country ius not honorable; we are in a very bad place.
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Mukasey's comments seemed to underscore his reputation for prickly independence—a quality that won him unusually warm praise from Democratic senators and seemed to all but guarantee his speedy confirmation by the Senate to succeed Alberto Gonzales. "I like him," Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, a persistent Gonzales critic, told reporters during a break in the hearing. "He's a fair-minded guy, he's an independent guy. He's about the best that we can expect from [this] administration."
For the most part, Mukasey followed the standard script for presidential nominees in confirmation hearings, eschewing any comments that could be deemed controversial. He told Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy that he would run a Justice Department in which "partisan politics plays no part"—a platitude that Democrats seemed to take as a refreshing commitment after the furor over allegations that Gonzales had fired U.S. attorneys for political reasons. Mukasey also avoided making a firm commitment on whether he would recommend shutting down the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. He also declined to offer any substantive views on the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance activities, asserting that, since he hadn't been "read into" the classified program, he couldn't offer an opinion about it.
In that context, his pledge to re-examine OLC opinions on the books seemed especially noteworthy. Barely a week ago, The New York Times disclosed that following the public withdrawal of the original Bybee torture memo at the end of 2003, Bradbury was brought in to head the OLC under Gonzales and issued two secret opinions on interrogations. Those opinions authorized the CIA to continue using many of the same harsh interrogation techniques, including head-slapping, frigid temperatures and "waterboarding" or simulated drowning, that were approved under the withdrawn memo.
The White House has since vigorously defended the opinions, and last week President Bush once again asserted that his administration does not practice "torture." But Mukasey's comments seemed to indicate that once he takes over, he will decide for himself about the legality of the Justice Department's definition of what constitutes "torture," as well as "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment. (After last week's disclosure of Bradbury's secret memos, three Democrats—Sens. Richard Durbin, Edward Kennedy and Russell Feingold—wrote President Bush this week urging him to formally withdraw them.)
White House spokesman Tony Fratto today insisted that Mukasey was not "singling out" Bradbury in his comments, noting there were earlier OLC chiefs whose opinions would also be reviewed. He also said that it is not surprising that Mukasey would want to take a fresh look at the OLC opinions. "They don't stand as the law of the land forever," he said. As for Bradbury's status, Fratto said: "Steve Bradbury is a brilliant legal mind and deserves to be confirmed by the Senate. He has great integrity and knows the law."
Perhaps Mukasey's only other noteworthy pledge was to recuse himself from Justice Department matters that might affect the current presidential campaign. Mukasey has long been close to GOP contender Rudy Giuliani (for whom he once worked as a federal prosecutor when Giuliani was U.S. attorney in New York.) Mukasey's son, Marc, is also a partner in Giuliani's law firm and was one of three lawyers who represented Giuliani in issues relating to the former New York mayor's testimony before a state grand jury investigating his former police commissioner, Bernard Kerik.
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