Senate leaders sent a strong signal Thursday that Michael Mukasey’s confirmation as the next attorney general may be in peril because Democrats are dissatisfied with the way he has responded to questions about a controversial interrogation technique.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he would not guarantee a Senate vote on the nomination unless Mukasey gets a green light from the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Democratic support has beenshrinking in recent days.
Several Democratic senators on the 19-member panel have already pledged to vote “no” on Mukasey, and even his chief Democratic advocate, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who also sits on the committee, is now wavering in his support.
“I am weighing this very carefully. Obviously there are strong considerations on both sides,” Schumer said.
Democrats have been peeling away from Mukasey since the second day of his nomination hearing, when he refused to classify as torture an interrogation technique known as waterboarding, which involves pouring water over a person’s face to induce a drowning sensation.
Democrats were not satisfied with Mukasey’s four-page letter to the Judiciary Committee that aimed to clarify his position. In it, he declined to say where he stands on the use of the technique because he does not have access to some of the classified information needed to make decisions about interrogation tactics.
“If there were ever any indication why people don’t like lawyers, read the letter he sent to us,” Reid said. “It’s so lawyerly, you don’t know what he is saying.”
Reid said he has made up his mind about Mukasey but wants to avoid influencing committee members. At the same time, Reid condemned waterboarding, putting him at odds with the nominee.
“I think my statements of the past show pretty clearly how I feel about this,” Reid said.
Four of the 10 Democrats on the Judiciary Committee announced they would vote against Mukasey’s nomination, including Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who in a Senate speech said Mukasey “evaded a wide range of questions about torture.”
President Bush accused Democrats of holding up Mukasey’s nomination over questions he is not legally equipped to answer.
“It’s wrong for congressional leaders to make Judge Mukasey’s confirmation dependent on his willingness to go on the record about the details of a classified program he has not been briefed on,” Bush said in a speech at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
