THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned that retired federal judge Michael B. Mukasey is the leading candidate to replace Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. President Bush is expected to announce the nomination as early as Monday.

Mukasey, 66, was nominated as a federal district judge for the Southern District of New York in 1988 by Ronald Reagan, and served until September 2006 with great distinction. Mukasey, widely viewed as one of the country’s top trial judges, presided over important trials including the 1995 New York City terror trial of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and eleven co-defendants, who were convicted and received lengthy jail terms. In an unusual statement, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, upon reviewing and upholding the judge’s work, noted that Mukasey had “presided with extraordinary skill and patience, assuring fairness to the prosecution and to each defendant and helpfulness to the jury. His was an outstanding achievement in the face of challenges far beyond those normally endured by a trial judge.”