Mukasey recovers, leaves hospital

By Ron Kampeas · November 21, 2008

WASHINGTON (JTA) - Michael Mukasey left the hospital and his spokeswoman said the U.S. attorney general’s collapse was probably a fainting spell.

"The attorney general had an uneventful night," Gina Talamona said in a briefing Friday morning, barely 12 hours after Mukasey collapsed while delivering a speech to the conservative Federalist Society. "He looks good and is very alert. The doctor’s are describing him as very fit. All the tests have been reassuring. There is no indication that he suffered a stroke or any heart-related incident. It really appears to have been a fainting spell."

Mukasey left George Washington University hospital a few hours after the briefing, and in an email to staff obtained by the New York Times, he said: "I plan to report to the department this afternoon and to continue doing the work I swore to do last November and which it has been an honor to do with you ever since."

Mukasey, a retired federal judge and a congregant at the Orthodox Kehillath Jeshurun on New York’s Upper East Side, was handily confirmed by the U.S. Senate a year ago, replacing the scandal-tainted Alberto Gonzales.