Mukasey Approved Secret Warrants Allowing Government Roundups Of Muslims After 9/11

[babylonsister]

How will Schumer defend this?

Detentions to Be Top Topic for Mukasey


LARA JAKES JORDAN | October 15, 2007 12:25 PM EST | AP


WASHINGTON — As the chief federal trial judge in Manhattan, Michael Mukasey approved secret warrants allowing government roundups of Muslims in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Six years later, the man President Bush wants to be attorney general acknowledged that the law authorizing those warrants "has its perils" in terrorism cases and urged Congress to "fix a strained and mismatched legal system."

Mukasey's caution about the material witness law probably will please Democrats who control the Senate Judiciary Committee. At confirmation hearings set to begin Wednesday, they plan to press the retired federal judge about the Bush administration's terrorist detention policy.

The committee chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, long has criticized the government's use of the warrants. They allowed the FBI to detain, without charges, an estimated 70 people, all but one of whom was a Muslim, as witnesses after the terrorist attacks in 2001.

Leahy, D-Vt., is expected to question Mukasey about this and other issues the senator has described as arising "from this administration's abuse of secrecy and expansion of executive power."

A fellow Democrat on the committee, New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, said he supports Mukasey but disagrees with some of his positions on terrorist detentions.

more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20071015/attorney-general/

[robinlynne]

1. I say recount the ohio votes, put kerry in office and let him nominate an AG!

[VP505]

2. Why bother

with a confirmation hearing they already have decided that they will approve him.

[The Stranger]

3. Defeat this nomination.

[gratuitous]

4. Will he answer any questions?

Or will Mr. Mukasey vanish like the Cheshire Cat behind a hail of "I don't recalls" and "I can't answer due to reasons of national security" leaving behind only a crooked little smile? Will the committee insist on answers? And if Mukasey continues to stonewall, will they decline to pass his nomination on to the full Senate?

My answers: You betcha; sort of, but not really; and oh, please.