Attorney General
Torture ‘Bright Line’ Blurs in 2nd Day of AG Hearings
Posted Oct 19, 2007, 05:41 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Michael Mukasey clashed with Democrats yesterday in the second day of hearings on his nomination for attorney general.
Mukasey refused to agree that an interrogation practice simulating drowning violated U.S. laws against torture and said the president may be able to ignore a law during wartime that requires an intelligence court to approve wiretaps, the Washington Post reports. Mukasey said the president’s constitutional authority as commander in chief could authorize him to trump some laws, the New York Times reports.
“The president doesn’t stand above the law,” Mukasey said. “But the law emphatically includes the Constitution.” When asked about waterboarding, which simulates drowning, Mukasey said he didn’t know what is involved in the technique.
Sen. Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., noted the change from the first day, when Mukasey repudiated a controversial torture memo issued by the Justice Department.
“On a number of your answers yesterday, there was a very bright line on the questions of torture and the ability of the executive or inability of an executive to ignore the law,” Leahy said. “That seems nowhere near as bright a line today."