Source:
Harper's MagazineThe Mukasey Doctrine
By Scott Horton
Prior to his confirmation, Michael Mukasey fessed up, in a written response to Senator Dick Durbin, to a meeting the White House arranged with a group of movement conservatives. The team he met with had a simple agenda: They wanted his assurance that he would not appoint special prosecutors to go after administration figures involved in serious scandals at the Justice Department, including the U.S. attorneys scandal and the introduction of torture with formal Justice Department cover, and they wanted his assurance that Justice would continue to provide legal cover to “the Program.” The team who met Mukasey included figures on the periphery of the scandal who may have had personal reasons to fear an investigation. But Mukasey is clearly keeping the understanding that brought him to the cherished post of attorney general. And that’s bad news for the Justice Department and its reputation.
Today he addressed the annual convention of the American Bar Association, and expanded upon what may be known to future generations as the “Mukasey Doctrine.” This doctrine holds that political appointees in the Justice Department who breach the public trust by using their positions for partisan political purposes face no punishment for their crimes. In the Mukasey view, this is all simple political gamesmanship—“boys will be boys”—and sufficient accountability is provided by exposing their games to the public limelight.
After reviewing in the briefest terms the recent internal Justice Department probe into the politicization of the hiring process in the honors program, with respect to immigration judges and in other areas, here’s what Mukasey has to say:
The conduct described in those reports is disturbing. The mission of the Justice Department is the evenhanded application of the Constitution and the laws enacted under it. That mission has to start with the evenhanded application of the laws within our own Department. Some people at the Department deviated from that strict standard, and the institution failed to stop them.
Read more:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/08/hbc-90003387
This is an ASOUNDING admission. He admitted ON PAPER that he had agreed
not to prosecute before he was confirmedWhat exactly does this say about the Democrats on this committee?
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