1. Michael Bernard Mukasey is an American lawyer and jurist who served as the 81st Attorney General of the United States from 2007 to 2009 and as a US district judge of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York from 1987 to 2006.
29 Facts About Michael Mukasey
1. 2.
Michael Mukasey worked in private practice for two decades and spent four years as an Assistant United States Attorney in the office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
3.
Michael Mukasey became the Chief Judge in 2000 and served until his retirement in 2006.
4.
Michael Mukasey was born on July 28,1941, in New York City.
5.
Michael Mukasey's father was born near Baranavichy in Belarus and emigrated to the US in 1921.
6.
Michael Mukasey graduated in 1959 from the Ramaz School, an independent Modern Orthodox Jewish prep school in the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City.
7.
Michael Mukasey then attended Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal.
8.
Michael Mukasey graduated in 1967 with a Bachelor of Laws.
9.
Michael Mukasey practiced law for 20 years in New York City, serving for four years as an Assistant US Attorney in the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York in which he worked with Rudolph Giuliani.
10.
Michael Mukasey began teaching at Columbia Law School in the spring of 1993 and has taught there every spring semester since.
11.
Michael Mukasey administered the oath of office to Mayor-elect Giuliani in 1994 and 1998.
12.
On July 27,1987, Michael Mukasey was nominated to be a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan by President Ronald Reagan, to a seat vacated by Abraham David Sofaer.
13.
Michael Mukasey was confirmed by the United States Senate on November 6,1987, and received his commission on November 9,1987; he took the bench in 1988.
14.
Michael Mukasey served in that position for 18 years, including tenure as Chief Judge from March 2000 through July 2006.
15.
Michael Mukasey presided over the trial of Jose Padilla, ruling that the US citizen and alleged terrorist could be held as an enemy combatant but was entitled to see his lawyers.
16.
Michael Mukasey was the judge in the litigation between developer Larry Silverstein and several insurance companies arising from the destruction of the World Trade Center.
17.
Michael Mukasey was listed on the Giuliani campaign's Justice Advisory Committee.
18.
Michael Mukasey is the recipient of several awards, most notably the Learned Hand Medal of the Federal Bar Council.
19.
In May 2004, while still a member of the judiciary, Michael Mukasey delivered a speech that defended the USA PATRIOT Act; the piece expressed doubt that the FBI engaged in racial profiling of Arabs and criticized the American Library Association for condemning the Patriot Act but not taking a position on librarians imprisoned in Cuba.
20.
On September 17,2007, Michael Mukasey was nominated by President Bush to replace Alberto Gonzales as US Attorney General.
21.
Senator Patrick Leahy, the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was pleased that Michael Mukasey was committed to a new administrative rule that would reduce the influence of the White House and other politicians on Justice Department investigations and personnel.
22.
Michael Mukasey refused to state a clear legal position on the interrogation technique known as waterboarding.
23.
Michael Mukasey was sworn in at a private ceremony on November 9,2007.
24.
However, neither presidential spokespersons nor Michael Mukasey returned reporters' inquiries into whether Michael Mukasey would recuse himself from the Kerik case.
25.
Michael Mukasey's move was criticized by advocates of elimination of crack-powder disparity.
26.
Michael Mukasey's "martyr" comment was a humorous reason offered as the only reason not to seek the death penalty.
27.
Michael Mukasey then said if the detainees were found guilty, they should be executed.
28.
Michael Mukasey's comments were described by the Electronic Frontier Foundation as "a gross distortion of the facts and the law", as both Executive Order 12333 and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act had offered a number of avenues for the United States government to intercept the phone call without a court order.
29.
On December 11,2014, Michael Mukasey publicly stated on CNN that he believed waterboarding could not be called torture.