FACTBOX: Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey
(Reuters) - The U.S. Senate began confirmation hearings on Wednesday for Michael Mukasey, President George W. Bush's nominee as attorney general to replace Alberto Gonzales, who resigned in August after months of controversy over some of his actions in office.
Here are some facts about Mukasey:
* Mukasey, 66, was born in New York. He attended Columbia University in New York and Yale Law School in Connecticut.
* Neither a Washington insider nor a member of Bush's inner circle, Mukasey spent his entire career in New York. He spent four years in the federal prosecutor's office, during which he worked for Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and current Republican presidential candidate. Mukasey swore Giuliani in as New York's mayor in January 1994 and both he and his son are advisers to Giuliani's campaign.
* He was appointed to the federal bench by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1987, and spent 19 years as a federal judge in New York, including serving as chief judge. He retired from the bench on September 9, 2006.
* On the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Mukasey presided over some high-profile terrorism trials. He presided over the 1993 prosecution of Omar Abdel Rahman, the "blind sheik," whom he sentenced to life in prison for his role in a plot to blow up New York landmarks. In the case of Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen once accused of planning a "dirty bomb" attack, he backed the White House in 2002 by ruling that he could be held as an enemy combatant, but opposed it by saying Padilla was entitled to legal counsel.
* Mukasey is expected to have an easier time winning Senate confirmation than some other candidates who had been mentioned, including Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff. Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, who led the drive to force Gonzales to resign as attorney general, said: "While he is certainly conservative, Judge Mukasey seems to be the kind of nominee who would put rule of law first and show independence from the White House."
Sources: Reuters, The Washington Post, The New York Times
