He obviously was too friendly and gave the wrong answers on Wednesday:
"Mukasey won't give his views on method of interrogation" by Lara Jakes Jordan/Associated Press October 18, 2007
WASHINGTON - Attorney general-nominee Michael B. Mukasey declined to say yesterday whether he considered waterboarding a form of torture, frustrating Democrats and potentially slowing his confirmation to head the Justice Department.
In an increasingly testy second day of hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mukasey also said he was reluctant to support legislation protecting reporters from being forced by courts to reveal sources.
The Democratic-led panel has approved those protections, which President Bush has threatened to veto.
Mukasey, a retired federal judge who has ruled in some of the nation's highest-profile terrorism trials, repeatedly avoided discussing the legality of specific interrogation techniques - including forced nudity, mock executions, and a form of simulated drowning known as waterboarding.
To comment would be irresponsible "when there are people who are using coercive techniques and who are being authorized to use coercive techniques," he said.
Instead, Mukasey stuck to his earlier definition of torture as illegal and unconstitutional - irritating Democrats who demanded a clearer answer.
"I'm hoping that you can at least look at this one technique and say that clearly constitutes torture; it should not be the policy of the United States to engage in waterboarding," said Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D., Ill.).
"It is not constitutional for the United States to engage in torture in any form, be it waterboarding or anything else," Mukasey answered.
During terse questioning by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.), Mukasey said he did not know if waterboarding was torture because he was not familiar with how it is done.
"If it's torture?" Whitehouse responded incredulously. "That's a massive hedge. I mean, it either is or it isn't."
"If it amounts to torture, it is not constitutional," Mukasey answered.
"I'm very disappointed in that answer," Whitehouse said. "I think it's purely semantics."
Mukasey looked down at his hands and took a deep breath.
[Yeah, what a pain in the ass the confirmation process is, huh, Muk?
Maybe you'd like a ride on the waterboard?]
Congress has banned waterboarding, although the Bush administration has refused to say whether it is among the interrogation techniques prohibited in an executive order last summer. The president himself has repeatedly said "We don't torture" and argued that intense interrogations are sometimes necessary to elicit information about terrorist plots.
Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, indicated he would wait for clearer answers from Mukasey before scheduling a committee vote to confirm him."
"I would think that he would want to answer as quickly as he can," Leahy said.
Even so, Senate aides said they expected a vote on Mukasey by the end of the month at the latest.
Mukasey also irked senators who sought to pin him down on how much leeway he would give the president, as authorized in the Constitution, beyond laws that have been enacted by Congress.
The struggle over the balance of power has been a hot topic during Mukasey's hearings, underscoring two issues confronting the Justice Department: the extent of presidential authority to eavesdrop on terror suspects and the congressional subpoenas to force administration aides to testify whether politics influenced the firings of nine US attorneys last year.
Regarding the subpoenas, "we are at an impasse," said Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the panel's top Republican.
"We have tried to find a way of accommodating what the president wants to do," Specter said. He asked Mukasey "to take a close look at it; see if you can help us resolve this impasse."
Specter also asked Mukasey to explain, in writing, specific objections to the proposed media shield law that protects reporters from revealing confidential sources. Mukasey told senators that the law would hinder prosecutors and could protect bloggers who are spies or terrorists.
[Oh, so now we are a bunch of spies and terrorists!!
FUCK YOU, Muk, and the gov't monitor reading this!!!
:-(
"The system worked passably well up until now," Mukasey said.
Congress says a media shield is necessary to protect reporters and government whistle-blowers who reveal improper or illegal official activity. Fifty news outlets, including the Associated Press, support the legislation."
The House overwhelmingly passed a similar bill last week, but President Bush said he would veto it. Mukasey, a former federal judge who also has represented reporters as a defense lawyer, indicated he would side with Bush against any federal legislation.
"One thing about internal procedures is that if you need to change them they're relatively easy to change. You can adjust the regulation, you can adjust the procedure, you can put more levels in. You can change standards. It becomes much harder when it's etched in stone in the form of legislation. And that is part of the reason for my unease."
[In other words, DON'T BOTHER US with the LAW!!!]
The Bush administration has issued a veto threat, saying that subpoenas for reporters are relatively rare and that a shield would make it harder to track down leakers of classified information.
[Except for what THEY LEAK!
Fuck you, administration! We are NOT STOO-PID out here!]
Mukasey said that he has reservations about the legislation because it sets too high a legal threshold for prosecutors to meet to overcome the shield. Proving that the disclosure is needed to prevent an attack is difficult in advance, the nominee said Wednesday.
The measure also pending defines a journalist too broadly and might inadvertently protect, for example, bloggers who are also spies or terrorists, Mukasey said.
Republican Sen. Charles Grassley warned Mukasey that the administration has not been friendly to whistleblowers and urged the nominee to stand up for anyone who exposes government mismanagement.
Grassley, R-Iowa, said he once suggested to Bush that he have a Rose Garden ceremony to honor whistleblowers:
["Because] for the most part they are patriotic people. And I got some sort of a comment back about if he did that every nut would come out of the woodwork. So with that sort of an attitude at the highest level of government, you know, it's very important that people a little lower down, as you are...make sure that the spirit of the law is carried out as well as the law."
"Senators Clash With Nominee About Torture" by PHILIP SHENON
WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 — On the second day of confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Mukasey went further than he had the day before in arguing that the White House had constitutional authority to act beyond the limits of laws enacted by Congress, especially when it came to national defense.
[Sig Heil!]
He suggested that both the administration’s program of eavesdropping without warrants and its use of “enhanced” interrogation techniques for terrorism suspects, including waterboarding, might be acceptable under the Constitution even if they went beyond what the law technically allowed. Mr. Mukasey said the president’s authority as commander in chief might allow him to supersede laws written by Congress.
[Is all that a SLAP in the FACE of Congress, or what?
Yes, the president SHALL OBSERVE NO LAW other than HIS OWN, huh?
Sig Heil! Sig Heil!! Sig Heil!!!]
In the case of the eavesdropping program, Mr. Mukasey suggested that the president might have acted appropriately under his constitutional powers in ordering the surveillance without court approval even if federal law would appear to require a warrant.
[Yeah, even if he broke the law, he didn't!
Paging George Orwell. Get out of that grave, please.]
Mr. Mukasey, who seemed uncomfortable with the aggressive tone, occasionally stumbling in his responses:
“The president is not putting somebody above the law; the president is putting somebody within the law. The president doesn’t stand above the law. But the law emphatically includes the Constitution.”
[WTF?!?!]
The remarks about the eavesdropping program drew criticism from the committee’s chairman, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, who told Mr. Mukasey that he was troubled by his answer, adding, “I see a loophole big enough to drive a truck through.”
The questioning by the Democrats was tougher still regarding Mr. Mukasey’s views on presidential authority to order harsh interrogation techniques on terrorist suspects, including waterboarding, which was used by the C.I.A. on some of those who were captured and held in the agency’s secret prisons after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
“Is waterboarding constitutional?” Mr. Mukasey was asked by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, in one of the sharpest exchanges.
“I don’t know what is involved in the technique,” Mr. Mukasey replied. “If waterboarding is torture, torture is not constitutional.”
Mr. Whitehouse continued.
"[Waterboarding] is the practice of putting somebody in a reclining position, strapping them down, putting cloth over their faces and pouring water over the cloth to simulate the feeling of drowning. Is that constitutional?”
Mr. Mukasey again demurred, saying, “If it amounts to torture, it is not constitutional.”
[Then it is UNCONSTITUTIONAL because THAT is TORTURE!!!
Doesn't the "debate" make you PROUD, Amurkn?]
Mr. Whitehouse said he was “very disappointed in that answer; I think it is purely semantic.”
“I’m sorry,” Mr. Mukasey replied.
While Mr. Mukasey still seemed almost certain to win Senate confirmation, a vote in the Judiciary Committee could be delayed until he provides written answers to questions raised Thursday by Mr. Leahy. The senator said he did not intend to hold the vote until after the responses were received and reviewed.
The committee’s ranking Republican, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, said that while he shared some of Democrats’ concerns about Mr. Mukasey’s views on the limits of presidential authority, “I think you are virtually certain to be confirmed, and we’re glad to see the appointment and glad to see somebody who is strong, with a strong record, take over this department.”
[Then these hearings are a complete waste of time!!
When did the U.S. Congress become so IMPOTENT?!
When the Dems won control?]
Other Republicans joined in the praise.
Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona: “I’ve listened to your testimony here, and it seems to me that you are extraordinarily well-suited for this position, pretty much as well as anybody who hasn’t served in the position before could be.”
Among the Democrats, Mr. Leahy was especially critical of Mr. Mukasey, wondering aloud whether he had been pressured overnight by the White House to defend the administration’s view of its expanded powers in dealing with terrorist threats.
Mr. Leahy:
“In your answers yesterday, there was a very bright line on questions of torture and the ability of an executive, or inability of an executive, to ignore the law. That seems nowhere near as bright a line today, and maybe I just don’t understand. I don’t know whether you received some criticism from anybody in the administration last night after your testimony, but I sensed a difference, and a number of people here, Republican and Democratic alike, have sensed a difference.”
Mr. Mukasey insisted there had been no pressure from the White House on Wednesday, saying, “I received no criticism.”
[Great! So we have ANOTHER AG that is a FLAT-OUT LIAR!!!
I want Ashcroft back!!!!]
"Mukasey won't give his views on method of interrogation" by Richard B. Schmitt/Los Angeles Times October 19, 2007
WASHINGTON - The confirmation hearing of Attorney General-designate Michael B. Mukasey turned contentious yesterday as Senate Democrats accused the nominee of dodging questions about a controversial interrogation technique and backtracking on statements he made about the obligations of the president to follow the law.
In a testy final day of questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mukasey drew the wrath of some Democrats on the panel when he refused to say whether he believed that so-called waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning, constitutes torture that is prohibited by the Constitution.
Waterboarding has become a flash point in the debate over the limits of US interrogation policy since the launch of the Iraq war. And it was targeted by Congress in legislation in 2005 outlawing "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" punishment.
The exchange marked some of the first serious criticism of the nominee and contrasted with the first day of hearings Wednesday, in which Mukasey was praised for being willing to take on the job of restoring the beleaguered agency. His evasive answers yesterday unnerved Democrats who viewed the last attorney general, Alberto R. Gonzales, as lacking candor, and are hoping for a fresh start under the former US district judge.
Mukasey, 66, remains on track to be confirmed.
[So this is ALL POSTURING, isn't it? A BIG FOOLEY!]
Mukasey was also accused of backtracking on statements he had made Wednesday that the president had to follow the law like any other citizen.
He told Leahy yesterday that he believed there might be times that the president, in order to defend the country, can ignore laws that Congress enacts. That authority, he said, is embedded in the Constitution.
[Umm, WHERE?
Oh, Sig Heil!]
The issue has been of concern to lawmakers since media reports two years ago disclosing how the Bush administration ignored the federal wiretapping law to launch a warrantless antiterrorism program. Congress and the White House are negotiating a new law, and Democrats want assurances that President Bush will operate within it.
[Have they LEARNED NOTHING?]
Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, said he found Mukasey's view "alarming."
"It sounds like overnight you've gone from being agnostic . . . to holding what is a rather disturbing view. You have said today that you believe the president may violate a statute if he is acting within his [constitutional] authority."
Mukasey said he was only stating a constitutional truism:
"Each branch [of government] has its own sphere of authority that is exclusive to it."
[How 'bout that, 'ey, Orwell?
So Bush's sphere of authority extends to disobeying the Constitution, Law, and Congress!
What the rest of the world calls a DICTATORSHIP!!!!!]
Leahy said he was also troubled by how Mukasey was interpreting the role of the Justice Department in prosecuting charges of contempt of Congress, including [against] former political strategist Karl Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers, who have claimed immunity under the doctrine of executive privilege."
And you know it was a bad hearing when even the newspapers pick up on it:
"The nominee is unresponsive" Boston Globe editorial October 19, 2007
October 19, 2007
AFTER REASSURING senators Wednesday that he would not take orders from political aides in the Bush White House, Michael Mukasey yesterday gave Judiciary Committee members reason to wonder if he would be much different from former attorney general Alberto Gonzales on other issues.
In the second day of his confirmation hearing to succeed Gonzales, Mukasey, a former federal judge, declined to say whether the simulated drowning technique of waterboarding is torture. He also repeated President Bush's belief that the resolution passed by Congress just after Sept. 11, 2001, gives the president the right to ignore a 1978 law banning warrantless wiretapping of Americans.
Mukasey's position on whether the president's secret wiretapping violates the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act drew a rebuke from a Republican on the committee, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. "Judge Mukasey," Specter said, "I don't think anybody ever really seriously contended that our resolution . . . authorizing the use of force encompassed a violation of FISA [the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act]." Senator Dianne Feinstein of California said that in congressional debate before passage of the resolution, wiretapping without warrants "was never discussed. It never came up."
Mukasey has also left senators in doubt about how hard he would work to find out whether Justice Department officials acted improperly in the US attorneys purge. He was unwilling to assure Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont that he would pursue contempt charges to get testimony on the firings from the former White House aide Karl Rove.
Nothing that Mukasey said, or left unsaid, in his testimony amounts to the bombshell that committee members feel would be required to turn the panel against his confirmation. He might indeed be the most independent and least ideological nominee that Bush would ever name.
[Then this whole thing is a bunch of HOT FART MIST.
And if this is the best Bush can do, WOE to this nation!]
But his testimony provided little evidence that he would act decisively to find out how, under Gonzales, the Justice Department became an enforcement arm of the White House political operation. The country needs a check on the Bush-Cheney campaign to expand presidential power, not another enabler."
[So where are you, MSM?]
