by James Oliphant

On the eve of hearings on the president’s nominee for attorney general, Michael Mukasey, three influential senators on the Judiciary Committee are asking the White House to pull a candidate for another high-level post at the Justice Department because of his involvement in secret memos authorizing torture.

Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.), Russ Feingold (Wis.) and Edward Kennedy (Mass.) sent a letter to President Bush today requesting that he withdraw the nomination of Steven Bradbury to the Office of Legal Counsel. The obscure but critically important office has been responsible for crafting some of the administration’s most contentious anti-terror policies.

Bradbury has been serving in the post on an interim basis since 2005. In that role, according to a story earlier this month in The New York Times, he reportedly signed off on two memos that authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to use abusive interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists. The memos came just months after the department had disavowed the so-called “Bybee memo” that had earlier authorized similar abusive techniques.

The Times reported that upon taking office, then-Atty. Gen Alberto Gonzales signed off on one Bradbury’s memos, secretly re-authorizing the interrogation policy.

Today, on the Senate floor, Durbin said that Bradbury and the Justice Department had failed to provide the Judiciary Committee with information about the internal policy change. “We do not know enough about where Mr. Bradbury stands on the issue of torture,” Durbin said. “What we know is troubling. Mr. Bradbury refuses to repudiate un-American and inhumane tactics such as water boarding, mock executions and physically detaining [and] abusing detainees.”

The senators also complain that Bradbury’s role in authorizing the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program also has gone undisclosed. That National Security Agency program has since been placed under the supervision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which is now supposed to review and approve wiretap requests.

Bradbury’s predecessor at the Office of Legal Counsel was Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard University law professor whose recent book detailed his objections to the administration’s positions on torture and surveillance. Goldsmith replaced Jay Bybee, who authored the original “torture memo” that Goldsmith repudidated. Bybee is now a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Goldsmith, along with then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey, was part of an internecine policy war within the administration over the anti-terror tactics. After Gonzales came aboard from the White House in 2005, both Comey and Goldsmith resigned.

At tomorrow’s hearings over Michael Mukasey, senators on the Judiciary Committee are expected to drill the nominee about his positions on torture, surveillance and other administration practices. See this story here from today’s Tribune.

(Durbin photo by Chuck Kennedy/KRT)