Now that President George W. Bush has nominated Michael Mukasey to succeed Alberto Gonzales as attorney general, the question is how much influence the retired federal judge will wield in filling the unusually high number of vacancies at the Department of Justice.
Most of Gonzales’ management team crumbled in the past nine months with the resignations of top administrators and political appointees. Many of those came in part because of the controversial firings of nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006 and the ensuing congressional hearings and internal investigations.
