Bush Defends Mukasey in Unusual Oval Office Chat
President Bush took the unusual action of inviting reporters to the Oval Office today, where he defended attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey.
Bush’s chat is another indication that Mukasey’s nomination could be in trouble over his refusal to condemn waterboarding as a form of illegal torture, the New York Times reports.
Bush said the Senate Judiciary Committee should move Mukasey’s nomination to the floor for an up-or-down vote.
“Judge Mukasey is not being treated fairly,” he said. A new attorney general is needed, he said, in light of the fact that the nation is “at war.”
Mukasey’s reluctance to comment on the legality of waterboarding may be an effort to protect CIA officers who used the technique from lawsuits and prosecution, ABAJournal.com noted in an earlier post.
Bush refused to say if he was concerned about legal liability, the Washington Post reports. He would not clarify whether investigators had used waterboarding, saying “it doesn’t make any sense to tell an enemy what we’re doing.”
