Nicholas Katzenbach

New Jerseyan Nicholas Katzenbach, right, then the Deputy U.S. Attorney General, confronts Alabama Gov. George Wallace, who blocked the door of the University of Alabama to prevent the enrollment of Black students in 1963

Former U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach says he can't imagine Robert F. Kennedy didn't talk to Democratic leaders about running for the U.S. Senate while he was still Attorney General, but says that it's a different situation than Chris Christie talking to Karl Rove.

"The Attorney General doesn't do the investigations of cases or determine what cases should be brought in any event," said Katzenbach, a Princeton resident who served as the Justice Department's No. 2 under Kennedy and currently lives in Princeton.  "I think if a U.S. Attorney had called anybody political in the White House without first consulting the Attorney General, whether it was me or Bobby Kennedy, he would have been asked for his resignation."

Katzenbach, 87, became Attorney General under President Lyndon B. Johnson after Kennedy was sworn in as a Senator from New York in 1965.  Katzenbach served in that position for almost two years, from early 1965 to late 1966, before being appointed Under Secretary of State.

A registered Democrat, Katzenbach said that he has not taken an active political role in anything since he testified against impeaching President Bill Clinton in front of Congress in 1998.  In an interview with PolitickerNJ.com last year, he called Christie's appointment of former Attorney General John Ashcroft to a no-bid federal monitoring contract "inappropriate" and "as wrong as it can be."

Gov. Corzine's campaign pounced on this month's revelation that Christie spoke with former Rove - President George W. Bush's political point man - about a potential gubernatorial run while he was still U.S. Attorney.  Christie dismissed the conversations as "social," but Corzine, other Democrats and an outside ethics watchdog group think have called it a potential violation of the Hatch Act

Katzenbach said that, given the alleged politicization of the Justice Department that took place under former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Rove's involvement in it, Christie should have avoided any conversations with Rove.

"Things have changed, and there was a great deal of effort to politicize the department of justice in the Bush Administration," he said.  "I thought that would have made it even clearer that it would be a very bad judgment to talk to somebody like Karl Rove if you were the U.S. Attorney."

But Katzenbach said that he did not see anything wrong with Christie's $46,000 loan to former First Assistant U.S. Attorney Michele Brown two years ago, when he was still U.S. Attorney.  Brown resigned yesterday, writing in her resignation letter that she did not want to be a "distraction."

FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL EXPECTED TO TESTIFY AT WEDNESDAY SECOND CHANCE HEARING IN PATERSON

(TRENTON) – Former U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach is expected to be among those testifying Wednesday when Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman convenes another Second Chance hearing to discuss improving education and training to help those released from prison avoid returning to crime.

The hearing will be the fourth in a series the Majority Leader is holding across New Jersey to discuss prison rehabilitation reform.

The hearing will be held from 3 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Eastside High School at 150 Park Place in Paterson.

Seventeen New Jerseyans have served in the President's cabinet since James Monroe named Samuel Southard as his Secretary of the Navy in 1823.

The last Democratic President to name someone from New Jersey to his cabinet was Lyndon B. Johnson, who in 1965 had three New Jerseyans in his twelve-member cabinet: Douglas Dillon who had been the Secretary of the Treasury under John F. Kennedy, Nicholas Katzenbach was Attorney General, and John Connor was the Secretary of Commerce.  When Connor left in 1967, Johnson named another New Jerseyan, Alexander Trowbridge, to replace him.

Nicholas Katzenbach, right, at the University of Alabama in 1963, confronting Gov. George Wallace on segregation: Getty Images Photo

Former U.S. Attorney General Nicholas deB. Katzenbach thinks that former Attorney General John Ashcroft is a good man – but not necessarily deserving of a federal monitoring contract worth up to $58 million.

“He’s a pleasant enough man. I doubt that he was an editor of the law review or a Supreme Court clerk or something of that kind -- those are the kinds of standards I have,” said Katzenbach, who lives in Princeton and served as Attorney General under President Lyndon B. Johnson between 1965 and 1966.

The contract in question is a position Christopher J. Christie, New Jersey’s United States Attorney, gave Ashcroft, his former boss, monitoring Zimmer Holdings, a medical implant company that admitted paying kickbacks to doctors to use its products. By agreeing to take on a federal monitor and pay a $311 million settlement, the company avoided prosecution.

Although Katzenbach acknowledged that there could be circumstances to the appointment that he’s unfamiliar with, to him it looks political -- especially considering that the Justice Department should appear the most free of political considerations.

Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, who served as Lyndon Johnson's Attorney General, says Michael Chertoff would be a bad pick for Bush: John F. Kennedy Library PhotoCiting an administration in a Constitutional free fall, Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, who served as U.S. Attorney General under President Lyndon B. Johnson, said George W. Bush should not choose Michael Chertoff as the successor to outgoing U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

"I had a good deal of respect for Michael Chertoff, but I haven’t heard about him objecting to the things going on within his orbit. He’s a lawyer. He ought to know better," Katzenbach said of the Secretary of Homeland Security and former U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, who has been rumored as a potential replacement for Gonzales.