In 2008, Susan Lindauer, a former journalist and congressional aide charged with acting as an unregistered foreign agent of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government, was released after Preska ruled her unfit to stand trial, saying that she was "highly intelligent" and "generally capable of functioning at a high level in many ways," but suffered from a mental disease or defect that left her with "a lack of connection with reality" and rendered her "unable to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against her or to assist properly in her defense." Preska's ruling affirmed earlier rulings by Judge Michael B. Mukasey.