Mukasey collapses in DC

By Ron Kampeas · November 20, 2008

WASHINGTON (JTA) - Michael Mukasey, the U.S. attorney general, collapsed during a speech.

Mukasey, 67, was delivering a speech Thursday night in Washington D.C. to the conservative Federalist Society when his speech began to slur and he started to shake, reports said. He was taken to George Washington University hospital; there were no further reports.

Mukasey was tapped in late 2007 to replace Alberto Gonzales, President Bush’s scandal-tainted attorney-general; a federal judge from New York respected for his handling of terrorist cases, Mukasey earned plaudits during confirmation hearings especially for likening torture to Nazi practices. That pleased Democrats who had opposed the Bush administration’s "enhanced interrogation techniques" applied on suspects in the wake of the Sept. 11 2001 terrorist attacks.

Mukasey, an Orthodox Jew who is a congregant at Kehillath Jeshurun on New York’s Upper East Side, won the support of Jewish Democrats in the Senate, including Charles Schumer of New York and Dianne Feinstein of California, as well as Joseph Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, that helped his easy confirmation, 53-40.

Democrats were subsequently disappointed by his failure to force White House officials to testify in corruption cases and his refusal to describe "waterboarding," or simulated drowning," as torture.