[lbo-talk] Dems stand up for principle

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Fri Nov 2 21:44:53 PDT 2007


On Fri, 2 Nov 2007, The WSJ was quoted:


> NEWS ALERT
> from The Wall Street Journal
>
> Oct. 2, 2007 [BTW, I assume this is a misprint for Nov. 2? - MP]
>
> Two senior Senate Democrats threw their support behind Michael B.
> Mukasey's nomination to head the Justice Department, turning the tide
> and likely assuring his confirmation. Sens. Schumer and Feinstein
> said fixing problems and repairing morale at the Justice Department
> are more important than settling larger political disputes.

I can't say about Feinstein, but with Schumer, this is unfortunately no surprise. Schumer put himself down for Mukasey before he had testified -- nay, he bragged about his influence in getting the administration to nominate him.

The reason seems to be that Schumer is more than close buddies with Guiliani -- he feels he owes him on several counts -- and Guiliani is super tight with Mukasey.

Why does Schumer feel he owes Guiliani? Wayne Barrett says (a) because he damped down an investigation of his campaign practices in 1980 which his boss at Justice wanted to get rolling, and (b) Guiliani hired his wife as transportation commissioner in his administration -- and made a specific pitch to get Bloomberg to take her into his:

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0744,barrett,78212,6.html

The question for Mukasey is not what he'll do at Justice

for the soon-to-be- departing Republican president, but what he'll do

for the putative next one, his lifelong friend Rudy Giuliani. Mukasey

and Giuliani were young federal prosecutors together in the early 1970s

and then practiced at the same Manhattan law firm, Patterson Belknap,

where Mukasey returned in 2006 when he retired after 18 years on the

federal bench in New York. Giuliani chose Mukasey to swear him in at

his inaugurals in 1994 and 1998.

The question of Mukasey's strong ties to Giuliani got the light touch

from Senator Pat Leahy, the Judiciary Committee chairman who opened the

two-day proceeding by saying that he assumed Mukasey would "totally

recuse" himself from "any involvement with Mr. Giuliani or any other

candidate for president." Mukasey laughed at the question, as if the

answer was obvious, and quickly agreed. But that chuckle rings a little

hollow when you look at who had come with him to the hearing: his wife

Susan, who volunteered almost daily in the Giuliani mayoral campaigns;

his stepson Marc, who was a staff assistant in one campaign and

currently is a partner at the Texas-based law firm that Giuliani

recently joined, Bracewell & Giuliani; and Louis Freeh, the former FBI

director who recently endorsed Giuliani and worked closely with him as

a federal prosecutor. Marc Mukasey is currently representing Giuliani

Partners in the federal probe of Bernard Kerik, a onetime member of the

consulting firm.

<snip>

There's no way to know, given the secrecy that grips Justice, how many

cases directly or indirectly involving Mukasey clients or Giuliani

interests might wind up before Mukasey. Would he distance himself from

such matters, especially those regarding Rudy? He didn't as a judge.

<commentary>

[I snipped a long list of cases here. Barrett's implicit argument is that a lot of these cases could potentially wound the Guiliani campaign -- but not if Mukasey damps them down.]

[Also he notes that Guiliani and Mukasey are both vehement about "policing voter fraud" -- i.e., suppressing black votes. Guiliani blamed his 1989 loss on illegal voters in Harlem and Washington Heights and pushed for investigations. Suppression could be a big legal issue-- or non-issue, a suppressed issue -- in the 2008 race.]

<begin new excerpt>

Even the Democratic senator guiding Mukasey's nomination though the

Senate, Chuck Schumer, has his own Giuliani connections. As associate

attorney general in 1983, Giuliani rebuffed Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Ray

Dearie, who had recommended Schumer's indictment based on allegations

involving his initial election to Congress in 1980. Schumer's wife,

Iris Weinshall, held several top posts in the Giuliani administration,

and was ultimately his transportation commissioner. Mayor Bloomberg has

said that Giuliani asked him to retain only two of his top aides when

he left City Hall, and one was Weinshall. Before Weinshall took over

the transportation job, she was a deputy commissioner under Giuliani at

another agency, where she oversaw the construction of the bunker at 7

World Trade Center.

Schumer pushed the White House to nominate Mukasey, just as he did with

Paul Crotty. He was impressed, no doubt, by Mukasey's intellect and

judicial service. But Schumer has not only championed Giuliani

associates like the well-regarded Crotty and Mukasey; he also rushed to

endorse Kerik when Bush nominated him for the homeland-security

position, praising Kerik's "strong law-enforcement background" and

predicting that he would do "an excellent job" at the giant agency.

Schumer and the other committee Democrats did interrogate Mukasey about

his views on detention, interrogation, torture, and related terror

issues and found that they are largely indistinguishable from the views

of President Bush. The committee is now awaiting Mukasey's more

expansive answers to written questions, and some members are saying

that their votes are in doubt, though Schumer was publicly predicting a

unanimous vote for Mukasey after the first day's hearing.

<end excerpt>

Full at: http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0744,barrett,78212,6.html

Michael



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