The top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee said he is bothered by the attorney general nominee's refusal to say whether waterboarding is torture but will support his nomination to be head of the Department of Justice anyway.
Republican Senator Arlen Specter joined two key Senate Democrats in saying he will back President George W. Bush's choice, Michael Mukasey, because the retired judge has said that if Congress passes a law banning waterboarding, "the president would have absolutely no legal authority to ignore such a law."
"He could have said a lot of things which would have given me more assurances," Specter said on Sunday. "But he is intelligent; he's really learned in the law. He's strong, ethical, honest beyond any question. He's not an intimate of the president."
"And you have to balance it off with where we are today," Specter said. "The Department of Justice is dysfunctional. It is not performing. And every day that passes, we do not have someone in charge of the investigation against terrorism, the fight against violent crime."
The Judiciary Committee was set to vote on Mukasey's nomination today.
Republican Senator John McCain on Sunday reiterated his support for Mukasey, even though he said Mukasey's answers about waterboarding have not been totally clear.
"I wanted [Mukasey] to say that waterboarding was torture and illegal," McCain, a former prisoner of war, told reporters in Mason City, Iowa. "He said that he would get briefed on the procedures."
The Republican presidential candidate -- who is not on the Judiciary Committee -- said he received a letter from Mukasey that said the former judge found waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning, "repugnant and he would never support such a thing."
Mukasey's confirmation had been in doubt as five of the panel's 10 Democrats, including Chairman Patrick Leahy, had lined up against Mukasey after he refused to state categorically that waterboarding is illegal.
But last Friday, Democratic Senators Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein announced they would support the president's nomination. With nine Republicans on the panel, Schumer and Feinstein's support virtually guarantees that a majority of the committee will recommend his confirmation.
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