Groups closely eye attorney general nomination hearings

Civil libertarians on Tuesday urged the Senate Judiciary Committee on the eve of its confirmation hearing for Attorney General-nominee Michael Mukasey to get a commitment from him to "clean up" the Justice Department.

Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., was scheduled to meet with Mukasey, who would replace Alberto Gonzales, later in the day. The hearing begins Wednesday morning and could spill over into Thursday.

Mukasey, a U.S. district judge in New York for two decades, presided over the 1995 trial of a group accused of plotting terrorist attacks in Manhattan. He also issued the first ruling on a challenge by terror suspect Jose Padilla to his detention as a so-called enemy combatant.

After Gonzales' resignation in August, former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson was rumored to be a White House favorite for attorney general, but Senate Democrats threatened to block the nomination. Mukasey is seen by policy watchers as a safer choice.

The Justice Department is way off course, especially with respect to the "erosion of civil rights and human rights," said Julie Fernandes of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. "This is about the future, [and] we need to right this ship," she said at a briefing with reporters.

Chris Anders, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the nomination is different than those for Gonzales and his predecessor, John Ashcroft. "Our expectation is that confirmation hearing will be less on mining his background and looking at his past record," Anders said of Mukasey.

The ACLU has advised the committee to focus its attention on getting Mukasey to agree to provide documents pertaining to government spying and detainee torture. Leahy and committee ranking Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania repeatedly have requested them.

Specifically, the agency has been asked for papers on the legality of the government's anti-terrorism wiretaps without warrants and the use of "national security letters," which let agents get telephone, e-mail and other records without judicial approval.

The ACLU also renewed its longstanding call for senators to ask for the appointment of an outside special counsel to investigate and, if appropriate, criminally prosecute any civilians involved in the misuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

"If there's anything the committee should have learned from Gonzales, it is to get clear commitments up front," Anders said. "We just went through a two-and-a-half year experience of endless frustration ... and if they had insisted on clearer commitments, maybe it would have been a different story."

Lisa Graves, the committee's former chief nominations counsel, said she wants the panel to ask Mukasey if he will reconsider the administration's assertion of a blanket "state-secrets privilege" to pre-empt lawsuits pertaining to electronic eavesdropping.

Graves, who is now deputy director of the Center for National Security Studies, said the nominee also should vow to not block executives from telephone companies who reportedly assisted with spying activities from testifying before Congress.

"The White House and Mukasey have an interest in projecting this nominee as someone who is independent and forthright," Fernandes added. "[Justice's] credibility is in the toilet."