A Rundown Of Our Next A.G.

bush (the asshole) is expected to name an attorney general soon. Perhaps as early as this week.

The five finalists include:

Michael Mukasey - (born 1941) is an American lawyer who was for 19 years a judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Mukasey attended Columbia and Yale Law School. He practiced law for twenty years in New York City, serving for four years as an Assistant United States Attorney and later was as as a member of the New York law firm of Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler.

In 1987, Mukasey was nominated as a federal judge in Manhattan by President Ronald Reagan. He served in that position for 19 years and was Chief Judge of the Southern District of New York from 2000 to July 2006. During his tenure on the bench, Mukasey presided over cases including the criminal prosecution of Omar Abdel Rahman and El Sayyid Nosair, as well as some of the proceedings against Jose Padilla.

Mukasey also was the judge in the litigation between developer Larry Silverstein and several insurance companies arising from the destruction of the World Trade Center.

In June 2006, Mukasey announced that he would retire as a judge and return to private practice at the end of the summer. On August 1, 2006, he was succeeded as Chief Judge of the Southern District by Judge Kimba Wood. Mukasey's retirement took effect on September 9, 2006. On September 12, 2006, Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler announced that Mukasey had rejoined the firm as a partner.

Theodore B. (Ted) Olson - was the 42nd Solicitor General of the United States. He was nominated by President Bush on February 14, 2001, confirmed by the United States Senate, and took the oath of office on June 11, 2001.

Mr. Olson was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was educated in public schools in California. He received his bachelor's degree cum laude from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, where he received awards as the outstanding graduating student in both journalism and forensics, and his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley (Boalt Hall), where he was a member of the California Law Review and Order of the Coif.

Mr. Olson served President Reagan as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel from 1981 to 1984. Before being named to that post, he was a partner in the Los Angeles office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where he practiced constitutional, media, commercial and appellate litigation. After completing his service as Assistant Attorney General, Mr. Olson returned to Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, in its Washington, D.C. office, engaging in the practice of constitutional and appellate law and general litigation, and served as Partner-in-Charge of that office, on the firm's Executive and Management Committees and as co-chair of the firm's Appellate and Constitutional Law Practice Group.

Mr. Olson has argued numerous cases before the Supreme Court of the United States, including cases involving constitutional and federal statutory issues regarding copyright, telecommunications, federal securities regulation, antitrust, the environment, school vouchers, the internet, the 2000 census, property rights, punitive damages, criminal law, immigration, the right to a jury trial, due process, voting rights, equal protection, separation of powers, the ex post facto clause, the speech, press and religion clauses of the First Amendment, the powers of the President, and the constitutionality of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law. Before rejoining the Justice Department in 2001, he successfully represented candidates George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in the Supreme Court Bush v. Gore cases involving the 2000 presidential election.

Mr. Olson is a Fellow of both the American College of Trial Lawyers and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers. He has written and lectured extensively on appellate advocacy, oral advocacy in the courtroom and constitutional law.

Laurence H. Silberman - born October 12, 1935) is a senior federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was appointed in October 1985 by Ronald Reagan and took Senior status on November 1, 2000.

Silberman graduated from Dartmouth College in 1957 and Harvard Law School in 1961. He served in the United States Army from 1957 to 1958. He has been a partner in law firms in Honolulu and Washington, D.C., as well as a banker in San Francisco. He served in government as an attorney in the NLRB's appellate section, Solicitor of the Department of Labor from 1969 to 1970 and Undersecretary of Labor from 1970 to 1973. As Deputy Attorney General of the United States from 1974 to 1975, he had to read J. Edgar Hoover's secret files, which he describes as "the single worst experience of my long governmental service".

He was Ambassador to Yugoslavia from 1975 to 1977. From 1981 to 1985, he served as a member of the General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament and the Defense Policy Board. He was an Adjunct Professor of Administrative Law at Georgetown University Law Center from 1987 to 1994 and in 1997 and 1999, at NYU from 1995 to 1996, at Harvard in 1998. He was a member of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review during the first time it was ever called into session in 2002.

On 6 February 2004, Silberman was appointed co-chair of the Iraq Intelligence Commission, an independent panel created to investigate U.S. intelligence surrounding the United States' 2003 invasion of Iraq and Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. He is currently teaching Administrative law and Labor law at Georgetown University Law Center.

George J. Terwilliger - a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of White & Chase LLP, an international law firm. Terwilliger was "a leader of President George W. Bush's legal team during the Florida election recount." "He was an advisor to the Bush-Cheney Transition and counselor to designated cabinet and other prospective appointees."

In 2003, Terwiller co-founded Americans for a Better Country with Frank J. Donatelli, former Ronald Reagan White House political director and secretary and treasurer of the Young America's Foundation, and Craig Shirley, president and CEO of Shirley & Banister Public Affairs.

A former U.S. Attorney for Vermont and Deputy U.S. Attorney General (1991-93) in the George H.W. Bush administration, Terwilliger "specialized in white-collar crime and terrorism."
Highlights of this service include his leadership in resolving matters such as BCCI, an international banking scandal, environmental cases, antitrust merger reviews and enforcement matters, civil rights and voting cases as well as terrorism and national security cases. Mr. Terwilliger was also in charge of all Justice Department operations, including crisis response, such as the civil unrest in Los Angeles in 1992.

On policy matters, he was a principal in the highest councils of government charged with addressing the broad array of legal policy issues arising in the Executive Branch.
Terwilliger, of Vermont, was nominated February 14, 1992, by President George H.W. Bush to be Deputy Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice. He would succeed William Pelham Barr.

At the time of his nomination, Terwilliger was serving as "Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, DC. Prior to this, he served as U.S. Attorney for the District of Vermont, 1986-1990; First Assistant U.S. Attorney for Vermont, 1986; and Assistant U.S. Attorney in Vermont, 1981-1986. From 1978 to 1981, Mr. Terwilliger served as Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.

"Mr. Terwilliger graduated from Seton Hall University (B.A., 1973) and Antioch School of Law (J.D., 1978). He was born June 5, 1950, in New Brunswick, NJ. Mr. Terwilliger is married, has three children, and resides in Oakton, VA."

Larry D. Thompson - (15 November 1945, Hannibal, Missouri) was a deputy Attorney General of the United States under United States President George W. Bush until August of 2003. While Deputy Attorney General, he led counter-terrorism efforts and efforts to punish white-collar crime. Among other accomplishments, he oversaw prosecutions against officials at Enron.
Thompson is the son of a railroad laborer from Hannibal, Mo. He received his bachelors, cum laude, from Culver-Stockton College in 1967, his master's degree from Michigan State University in 1969, and his law degree from the University of Michigan in 1974.

In 1970, Thompson married Brenda Anne Taggart. They have two sons.

From 1982 to 1986, he served as U.S. attorney for the northern District of Georgia and led the Southeastern Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. The New York Times describes him as "a moderate" who is "respected by both Democrats and Republicans."

In 2001, Thompson was appointed as Deputy U.S. Attorney General by President Bush.
In January 2003 Thompson issued an internal Justice Department document informally titled the Thompson Memorandum written to help federal prosecutors decide whether to charge a corporation, rather than or in addition to individuals within the corporation, with criminal offenses.[2] The guidelines were considered tough because they require that to claim cooperation, companies must (1) turn over materials from internal investigations, (2) waive attorney-client privilege, and (3) not provide targeted executive with company-paid lawyers. The guidelines were criticized for, among other things, "seriously eroding" attorney-client privilege.

These guidelines were "eased" in December 2006 by Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty who issued a revised version of the memorandum.

In August 2003 Thompson left the Justice Dep't and was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution for a year before accepting the position of senior vice president for government affairs and general counsel at Pepsico in Purchase, New York. Thompson is also a visiting professor at the University of Georgia law school. Thompson has also taught at Georgia State University College of Law.

Thompson was named in the press as a leading candidate for Attorney General after John Ashcroft resigned on November 9, 2004. Thompson, if selected, would have been the first African-American ever to head the Justice Department. Instead, Alberto Gonzales was selected as Ashcroft's replacement. Later, Thompson's name was mentioned as a possible candidate to replace Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

Olson appears to be emerging as the frontrunner and is speculated to be bush's nominee.