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(Photo: AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
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The Senate confirmed former federal judge Michael Mukasey 53-40 Thursday, Nov. 8, 2007, as attorney general.
"Judge Mukasey will lead the Justice Department as it works to protect the American people whether from drug traffickers and other criminals on our streets or from terrorists who seek to attack our homeland," President Bush after the confirmation vote.
"Now that Judge Mukasey has been confirmed, I look forward to working with the Senate to fill the other senior leadership positions at the Justice Department so that America has the strongest, most capable national security team during this time of war," Mr. Bush added.
The statement was a bow to reality — and to the demands of Democrats that Mukasey clean up the mess Alberto Gonzales left at the helm of the nation's federal law enforcement agency.
At least 15 senior Justice Department officials have resigned since Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. began his investigation of the firings of federal prosecutors at the start of 2007. The departures include Mukasey's predecessor Gonzales, his second- and third-in-command and five assistant attorneys general.
Majority Democrats in the Senate have a list of expectations, too — chiefly, that Mukasey work closely with them.
Six Democrats, after all, helped seal his confirmation, even if all 40 votes against also came from the Democratic side of the aisle.
The confirmation vote capped 10 months of scandal and resignations at the Justice Department. Schumer drove the probe into the purge of nine federal prosecutors that helped push Gonzales out. Other possible misconduct was revealed in the process, such as Gonzales' subordinates making hiring decisions based on whether a candidate is Republican or Democrat — a possible violation of civil service laws.
Mukasey, 66, was the White House's first choice to replace Gonzales.
The former chief U.S. district judge in the Manhattan courthouse just blocks from ground zero, he was first appointed to the bench in 1987 by President Reagan. He also worked for four years as a trial prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York's Southern District — one of the Justice Department's busiest and highest-profile offices in the country.
Mukasey oversaw some of the nation's most significant terror trials in the years before and after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
A partner at New York-based law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, Mukasey is also a close friend to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican. He stepped down as an adviser to Giuliani's presidential campaign, on which he served as part of an advisory committee on judicial nominations.
Gonzales resigned Aug. 27, 2007, ending the months-long standoff with Republican and Democratic critics who called for his ouster over the Justice Department's botched handling of FBI terror investigations and the firing of U.S. attorneys.
Gonzales, who previously served as the White House's top lawyer, was sworn in on Feb. 3, 2005, and succeeded John Ashcroft to become the nation's first Hispanic attorney general. Gonzales, the Harvard-educated son of migrant farm workers, had been at the president's side on and off for almost a decade, chosen by Mr. Bush for five high-profile jobs. As White House counsel, Gonzales was at the center of developing and defending the president's approach in fighting terrorism.
Gonzales earned a law degree from Harvard in 1982, after which he worked as a corporate attorney with Vinson & Elkins, which represented Enron. In 1995 he was general counsel to Mr. Bush, who was serving as Texas governor, and went on to become Texas secretary of state and a state Supreme Court justice.
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