I think the easiest way to find out his commitment to uprooting corruption in the Department of Justice is to ask him at his confirmation hearing what he is going to about it. If the answer is ignore it and move on, then I don't think I'd be able to support his confirmation. I think it's too early to support his confirmation for precisely this reason - though I do admit he seems like a promising candidate.

Presumably, the nominee will lie and say that he plans to investigate thoroughly, then do nothing of the kind.

As Sharon Stone didn't say in Basic Instinct, "So what are you going to do? Impeach me for not investigating?"

AG AG demonstrated that you can do pretty much anything outside a Minnesota bathroom stall and remain in office.

As for the nomination itself, my own initial reaction is positive, and I expect Mukasey will be confirmed.

I would like to know more about where Mukasey would come down on some of the executive-power controversies -- particularly the constitutional issues. It would take skillful and probing questioning at a confirmation hearing to elicit this insight, but most Judiciary Committee members are hopelessly inept at such things.

So far, it seems, the prospective controversy at the hearings lies in Leahy's threat to hold up the process over pending disputes over subpoenas. The U.S. attorney matter seems increasingly stale now that Gonzales is gone, but the NSA legal memos remain relevant. I doubt that Leahy has much leverage so long as there is no significant marginal chance of voting the nomination down.

It will be interesting to see if Mukasey's expressed support for a new national security court will help grow legs on such proposals, which so far have not attracted much interest.

We should all have such "baggage" as Jim Comey allegedly has.

While I support the (presumptive) new AG, and I would like to see him confirmed, I don't particularly object to Sen. Leahy's attempt to get some documents out of the white house in the process. Worst thing that could happen is that he drags it out past the October recess and the AG gets confirmed around thanksgiving.

Justin,

It's just my own opinion, of course, but for me the U.S. attorneys matter has never risen to the same level of outrageousness as did the brazen decision to violate FISA.

While I abhor the politicization of DOJ, the investigative trail there really leads into the White House and the effort to compel testimony from Miers and Rove. That's why, to me, it seems stale to relate this matter to Mukasey. He probably will disavow politicized justice and pledge to rebuild independence at the department, and that will tend to inoculate him. I just don't see much traction there for Democrats.

By contrast, the surveillance controversy touches directly on the corruption of DOJ's adjudicatory function, and there is material information to explore. I see much greater relevance to the Mukasey confirmation in obtaining the prior legal opinions about the surveillance and asking him to accept or reject them on the record.

We don't, in fact, know much about how he views the Cheney/Addngton/Yoo theory of executive power under the Constitution. (We don't even have the written opinions -- current or prior -- articulating this theory with regard to FISA, which is much of what the documents fight is about.) We know only that Mukasey generally tends to favor robust use of the law in national security matters. (So does Jack Goldsmith.) We don't know the boundaries Mukasey would set -- either in a civil liberties context, or more importantly in a separation-of-powers context.