Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Paul Clement, who will run the Justice Department until a new attorney general is in place, hit a rare speed bump in his career the day he assured the U.S. Supreme Court the Bush administration doesn't torture prisoners.

That evening, on April 28, 2004, CBS News aired the first photographs depicting U.S. soldiers abusing men being held at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The incident might have derailed another lawyer's rise, raising questions about credibility or competence. For Clement, it was barely a blemish. With backing from Republicans and Democrats, he went on to become the youngest solicitor general in a half century and now, at age 41, will temporarily succeed Alberto Gonzales, who is resigning amid accusations that he politicized the department and misled Congress.

Clement is ``completely a straight shooter,'' said Tom Goldstein, a Democrat and Supreme Court lawyer at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld who often finds himself pitted against Clement in high court cases. ``He's certainly the right person right now. He was the last political appointee at the Justice Department to be unscathed.''

How long Clement will serve as acting attorney general remains to be seen. Bush plans to name a permanent replacement for Gonzales by Sept. 3, a White House official told reporters on condition of anonymity, and will have to get his nominee through the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Clement, the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, has built a reputation as one of the country's most skilled courtroom advocates and, according to Goldstein, a potential high court nominee himself. He has maintained the traditional independence of the solicitor general's office, even while pushing President George W. Bush's policy positions in Supreme Court cases on abortion, racial preferences and terrorism.

`Superb' Advocacy

When Bush nominated him to be solicitor general in 2005, Clement enjoyed the support of Senator Russ Feingold, a Democrat from Clement's home state of Wisconsin. Feingold pointed to what he called Clement's ``superb'' advocacy in defending federal campaign-finance restrictions.

``He's a mainstream legal conservative,'' said Bradford A. Berenson, a former Bush administration associate White House counsel who worked with Clement on the Harvard Law Review when they were students in the 1990s and later recommended him for a judicial clerkship. ``But Paul is also a pragmatist and a very sensible, clear-thinking guy. I don't think it'd be appropriate to slap the ideologue label on him at all.''

In announcing the temporary appointment yesterday, Bush called Clement ``one of the finest lawyers in America'' and said he has ``earned the respect and confidence of the entire Justice Department.''

Probe of Gonzales

In recent months, Clement has served as acting attorney general for matters connected to the Gonzales controversy, including the July 26 call by some Senate Democrats for a special prosecutor to investigate Gonzales's truthfulness.

Clement's solid standing on both sides of the Washington political divide will give some respite to a Justice Department that has been wracked by months of accusations against Gonzales. Democrats say Gonzales politicized the department and misled Congress and the public about the firing of federal prosecutors and the wiretapping of suspected terrorists.

Clement, the father of three boys, is a former law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia. He worked for then-Senator John Ashcroft on Capitol Hill, moving to the solicitor general's office when Ashcroft became attorney general in 2001.

Clement donated $2,000 to Bush's re-election campaign in 2004.

Terrorism Legislation

As deputy solicitor general under Theodore Olson, Clement was the administration's point man on terrorism-related litigation, arguing at the appeals court level as well as the Supreme Court in an effort to shape the legal landscape.

Those efforts have produced mixed results. In 2004, the Supreme Court ruled that foreign nationals at Guantanamo can challenge their detention in federal court. Last year the justices barred Bush's plan to try Guantanamo Bay inmates before military tribunals.

Still, lawyers credit Clement with putting the best possible face on the administration's bid for broader executive- branch power to combat terrorism.

``He was asked to defend some extreme positions by his client, the administration,'' said Jenny Martinez, a law professor at Stanford University in California. Martinez squared off against Clement at the high court in a 2004 case involving Jose Padilla, an American citizen who was then being held without charges as an ``enemy combatant.''

It was during the Padilla argument that Clement, responding to a hypothetical question from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg about ``mild torture,'' said the administration doesn't engage in that practice.

Martinez said Clement may well have been ``out of the loop'' concerning the Abu Ghraib problems and the imminent media explosion.

``If he had known that those photos were going to be on TV that evening, it would have been a pretty foolish thing to have said,'' she said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: August 28, 2007 00:09 EDT