President Bush just named Michael Mukasey to replace Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General. Many Americans who don’t follow politics that closely have emailed us asking, “who is this Mukasey guy?” So here is the Wikipedia profile of Michael Mukasey.
Michael Bernard Mukasey[4] (IPA: /mju.ˈkeɪ.zi/[5]) (born July 28, 1941)[3] is an American lawyer who, for 18 years, served as a judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, six of those years as Chief Judge. On September 17, 2007, President George W. Bush nominated Mukasey to serve as the 81st Attorney General of the United States, succeeding Alberto Gonzales.[6][7] Mukasey has received several awards, most notably the Learned Hand Medal[8] of the Federal Bar Council.
Personal background
Mukasey attended the Ramaz School in Manhattan, graduating in 1959. His wife, Susan, was a teacher and headmistress of the lower school at Ramaz and both of their children (Marc[9] and Jessica[10]) attended the school.[11]
Mukasey graduated from Columbia University, where he was the op-ed page editor of the Columbia Daily Spectator,[12] receiving his B.A. in 1963, and Yale Law School, receiving his LL.B. in 1967. He practiced law for 20 years in New York City, serving for four years as an Assistant United States Attorney in the federal prosecutor’s office[2] in which he worked with Rudolph Giuliani. In 1976, he joined the New York law firm of Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, to which he returned after retirement from the U.S. District Court.[13]
Mukasey’s son, Marc L. Mukasey, leads the white-collar criminal defense practice in the New York office of Bracewell & Giuliani.[14] The Mukaseys have a professional relationship with Rudy Giuliani; Mukasey and son are also justice advisers to Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign.[15] Mukasey swore in Mayor-elect Giuliani in 1994 and 1998.[15]
Judge Mukasey is a prominent member of the Manhattan Jewish community.
Judicial Career
In 1987, Mukasey was nominated as a federal district judge in Manhattan by President Ronald Reagan; he took the bench in 1988. He served in that position for 18 years, including a tenure as Chief Judge of the Southern District of New York from 2000 to July 2006. During his tenure on the bench, Mukasey presided over the criminal prosecution of Omar Abdel Rahman and El Sayyid Nosair, whom he sentenced to life in prison for a plot to blow up the United Nations and other Manhattan landmarks uncovered during an investigation into the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.[13] During that case, Mukasey spoke out against leaks by law enforcement officials regarding the facts of the case allegedly aimed at prejudicing potential jurors against the defendants.[17]
Mukasey also heard the trial of Jose Padilla, ruling that the U.S. citizen and alleged terrorist could be held as an enemy combatant but was entitled to see his lawyers. Mukasey also was the judge in the litigation between developer Larry Silverstein and several insurance companies arising from the destruction of the World Trade Center.[13] In a 2003 suit, he issued a preliminary injunction preventing the Motion Picture Association of America from enforcing its ban against the distribution of screener copies of films during awards season, ruling that the ban was likely an unlawful restraint of trade unfair to independent filmmakers.
In June 2003, Democratic New York Senator Charles Schumer submitted Mukasey’s name, along with four other Republicans or Republican appointees, as a suggestion for Bush to consider for nomination to the Supreme Court.[18]
In May 2004, while still a member of the judiciary, Judge Mukasey delivered a speech (which he converted into a Wall Street Journal opinion piece) that defended the Patriot Act; the piece also doubted that the FBI engaged in racial profiling of Arabs and criticized the American Library Association for condemning the Patriot Act but not taking a position on librarians imprisoned in Cuba.[19]
On October 14, 2004, citing U.S. Supreme Court precedent, Mukasey reversed his September 2002 decision and dismissed a case in which plaintiffs in twenty consolidated actions sued the Italian insurance company, Generali S.p.A. (Generali), seeking damages for non-payment of insurance proceeds to beneficiaries of policies purchased by Holocaust victims before the end of World War II.
Retirement
Although Article III of the U.S. Constitution entitles district court judges to hold their judicial appointments for life, in June 2006, Mukasey announced that he would retire as a judge and return to private practice at the end of the summer. On August 1, 2006, he was succeeded as Chief Judge of the Southern District by Judge Kimba Wood. Mukasey’s retirement took effect on September 9, 2006. On September 12, 2006, Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler announced that Mukasey had rejoined the firm as a partner. [22]
On August 22, 2007, the Wall Street Journal published Mukasey’s op-ed, prompted by the resolution of the Padilla prosecution, in which he argued that “current institutions and statutes are not well suited to even the limited task of supplementing . . . a military effort to combat Islamic terrorism.” Mukasey instead advocated for Congress, which “has the constitutional authority to establish additional inferior courts,” to “turn [its] considerable talents to deliberating how to fix a strained and mismatched legal system.”[23]
Since retiring from the bench, Mukasey has made campaign contributions to Giuliani for president and Joe Lieberman for Senate.[24] Mukasey is also listed on the Giuliani campaign’s Justice Advisory Committee.
The nomination of Mukasey was a good idea for the Bush Administration, because Bush’s last term is running out and he cannot afford to waste time with a lengthy and contentious confirmation process.
Mukasey has shown himself to be a strong Republican, but also an individual who is quite willing to rule against Bush if he thinks it’s the right thing to do.
-Samantha Giles
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