FACTBOX: Facts on Mukasey

(Reuters) - President George W. Bush will nominate retired federal judge Michael Mukasey as U.S. Attorney General to replace the outgoing Alberto Gonzales, sources said on Sunday.

Here are five facts about Mukasey:

* Aged 66, he was born in 1941 in the New York borough The Bronx. He attended Columbia University in New York and Yale Law School in Connecticut.

* Not a Washington insider, Mukasey spent his entire career in New York, including 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 and his son are both legal advisors to Giuliani.

* 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. In 1993, he presided over the prosecution of Omar Abdel Rahman, known as the "blind sheik," whom he sentenced to life in prison for his role in a plot to blow up city landmarks.

* Mukasey is considered a law-and-order conservative and an authority on national security issues. He 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 out Gonzales, 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