President Bush selected Michael Mukasey, a former New York federal judge, to replace Alberto Gonzales as attorney general, according to The Associated Press.
Mukasey, appointed to the bench in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan, was the former chief U.S. district judge in Manhattan, the AP reported. He presided over terror cases such as the conviction of "blind sheik" Omar Abdel Rahman for plotting to blow up New York landmarks and the initial trial of Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen accused of supporting al-Qaida operations, the AP reported.
Mukasey will now face the challenge of leading a Justice Department under fire.
"The [Justice] Department faces challenges vastly different from those it faced when I was an assistant U.S. attorney 35 years ago," Mukasey told the AP in a speech on the White House lawn. "But the principles that guide the department remain the same: to pursue justice by enforcing the law with unswerving fidelity to the Constitution."
-PATRICIO CHILE
