Washington - US President George W Bush will name retired federal court judge Michael Mukasey as his pick for attorney general, the Washington Post reported Monday. If approved by the opposition Democrat-controlled Senate, Mukasey would replace Alberto Gonzales in the top job at the US Justice Department.
Gonzalez officially stepped down Friday, though he announced his resignation in August after months under siege amid controversies including political motives in the firing of nine US attorneys, the veracity of Gonzeles' testimony to Congress and his work on torture policies as a White House lawyer before becoming attorney general.
Mukasey, 66, presided as a federal judge in New York over several cases with national security implications, including the 1995 trial of 10 defendants in a plot to blow up New York landmarks. The so- called blind sheik, a native Egyptian preacher and Islamic militant icon, Omar Abdel Rahman was among those found guilty by the jury, and he was sentenced by Mukasey to life in prison.
The Post described Mukasey as a law-and-order conservative who is likely to meet little resistance in the Senate, where the centre-left majority was girding for a confrontation if the conservative Bush were to offer a nominee who was more ideological or politically tied to the White House.
