[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 21]
[Senate]
[Pages 29095-29096]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  NOMINATION OF JUDGE MICHAEL MUKASEY

  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I will not take that much time, but I 
do want to draw my colleagues' attention to an issue that is going to 
be in front of the Judiciary Committee and my colleague, the Presiding 
Officer, this next week, and that is the nomination of Judge Michael 
Mukasey to be Attorney General of the United States.
  Judge Mukasey is an outstanding nominee, highly qualified by 
anybody's definition, a consensus nominee who has now drawn fire. It 
strikes me as a situation of ignoring the forest for a tree. I want to 
talk about the specific tree that is here in the way, but I want to 
also point out the forest we have.

[[Page 29096]]

  Judge Mukasey is an outstanding, qualified nominee, strongly 
supported, warmly put forward by Republicans and Democrats alike. He is 
not an ideologue by any means.
  Senator Schumer said, at the outset:

       [H]e could get a unanimous vote out of this committee.

  Senator Schumer had previously discussed Judge Mukasey as a possible 
appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court--a lifetime appointment to the U.S. 
Supreme Court.
  Here again, Senator Schumer's words:

       Let me say, if the president were to nominate somebody, 
     albeit a conservative, but somebody who put the rule of law 
     first, someone like a . . . Mike Mukasey, my guess is that 
     they would get through the Senate very, very quickly.

  Well, it has now been 41 days that the nomination has been pending. 
That is longer than any other nominee for Attorney General in over 20 
years. He is a consensus nominee.
  I have my problems with Judge Mukasey on narrow issues. But if we 
look at the central issue of our day, which is the war on terrorism, 
the war we are having with militant Islamists that we are likely to be 
in for a generation, you could not ask for a more qualified Attorney 
General nominee than Judge Mukasey.
  He is a gentleman who, as a judge, has handled some of the most 
difficult terrorism cases we have had in the country. He is an 
outstanding jurist. He is highly qualified. He handled the blind sheik 
case that came in front of his court. He has handled others. This is a 
nominee who is going to be in position for, well, the rest of this year 
and next year, and that is it, as Attorney General. I think he is so 
highly qualified he could well proceed into a next administration if he 
could get in in this administration. Yet he is not being put forward.
  I want to quote--and this is an extraordinary quote. This is the 
Second Circuit Court of Appeals praising his work as a trial court 
judge in some of these difficult cases. I have not read before where a 
circuit court has praised the work of a trial court judge to such an 
extraordinary degree as they did of Judge Mukasey where they noted 
this. This is the Second Circuit saying this about him: ``extraordinary 
skill and patience.'' Further continuing to quote: ``outstanding 
achievement in the face of challenges far beyond those normally endured 
by a trial judge.'' That is the Second Circuit Court of Appeals about 
Judge Mukasey. This is an outstanding individual.
  Now, he was sailing along, doing well as a nominee, going through a 
tough confirmation process, handling the hearings well, dealing with 
the issues, and then an issue came up about torture, and waterboarding 
in particular. Then there seemed to be some confusion being declared 
about this, so he has cleared up the record on that issue.
  I want to read what he has stated on the record about this particular 
issue. And I want to say at the outset, it cannot be clearer that Judge 
Mukasey does not approve of waterboarding. He does not approve of it. 
He has called the procedure ``repugnant to me.'' He wrote to the 
Judiciary Committee Democrats that ``nothing . . . in my testimony 
should be read as an approval of the interrogation techniques presented 
to me at the hearing or in your letter, or any comparable technique.''
  ``[N]othing . . . in my testimony should be read as an approval of 
[this] interrogation technique. . . .''
  He has pledged, if confirmed, he will examine interrogation programs 
thoroughly, and he has promised that ``if, after such a review, [he] 
determine[s] that any technique is unlawful, [he] will not hesitate to 
so advise the President and . . . rescind or correct any legal opinion 
of the Department of Justice that supports use of the technique.''
  Now, do my colleagues doubt Judge Mukasey, whom they roundly praised 
just weeks ago, is a man of his word? Do they believe he would permit 
an illegal program to go forward? I do not think so. He will not. This 
is a straight-shooter. He is not a yes-man. He is not a yes-man to 
anybody. He has been on the bench for years. He has handled tough 
terrorism cases. He recognizes the threat terrorism is to this country. 
He also recognizes that the United States must stand for what is right. 
If we don't, that will be used against us in other places around the 
world, and it doesn't flow to the best image and it doesn't flow to the 
heart of what America is: a rule-of-law nation that stands up for what 
is right. He is going to do that. He has done that. He will do that.
  He is not a yes-man to anybody. He is not a yes-man to people who 
would oppose him in this body. He is not a yes-man to the President. He 
has far too distinguished a career to be a yes-man, with less than 14 
months left in an administration, for him to say: OK, I am just going 
to roll over and approve something I disagree with, in the final 14 
months of an administration.
  We need an Attorney General. We need an Attorney General in this 
country. This one has been pending far too long. I ask my colleagues 
who are seeking to oppose him--I think primarily on the grounds that 
they just want to oppose the Attorney General nominee of the United 
States or oppose the President--to back up and to take a second look at 
this gentleman and his great qualifications, his integrity he has 
conducted his entire life with, what he has specifically said about 
waterboarding, and find it in themselves to do the right thing and 
support him. This is an outstanding nominee who doesn't deserve this 
sort of treatment. We need to get this vote up and approved.
  I believe the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, whom I have worked 
with a great deal and whom I have a great deal of respect and 
admiration for, is going to hold hearings on Judge Mukasey on Tuesday, 
and a vote. I am hopeful we can vote him out of committee and vote him 
through the Senate, clearly before the Thanksgiving Day break. We need 
to. We need an Attorney General. This is the right man at the right 
time for this job.
  I thank you very much, and I note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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