US Attorney General Michael Mukasey remained under close observation in hospital Friday after collapsing while giving a speech in Washington, a Justice Department official said. Mukasey, 67, was giving remarks late Thursday to an annual dinner of the Federalist Society, a conservative group, when he took ill.
"Upon his collapse, emergency first aid was rendered by the attorney general's security detail and a doctor who was on the scene" before he was taken to George Washington University hospital, Peter Carr, acting director of public affairs, said in a statement.
"The attorney general is conscious, conversant and alert. His vital statistics are strong and he is in good spirits," Carr said, adding that doctors were keeping him overnight for further observations.
There was no immediate word of what caused the collapse. The Justice Department had not reported any recent medical problems for the former judge and prosecutor who is now the government's chief law enforcement officer. DC fire and emergency services personnel were called to a local hotel to attend to a man who had fainted in the ballroom where the dinner took place, according to the Washington Post.
Fire department spokesman Alan Etter would not identify the man, citing privacy laws, but the man other people identified as Mukasey was taken to hospital with a "general illness" that was not believed to be life-threatening, Etter told the Post. Video of the incident aired on CNN showed a tuxedo-clad Mukasey slurring his speech and then going rigid, prompting people to rush to his aid to prevent him from falling over.
Mukasey was sworn in as attorney general in November 2007, after President George W. Bush appointed him to replace the scandal-plagued Alberto Gonzales. The White House said Bush had been informed of Mukasey's situation, the New York Times reported.
Prior to his appointment, Mukasey had carved out a no-nonsense reputation during his 18 years as a federal judge in New York, and oversaw several high-profile cases including the 1995 trial of Omar Abdel-Rahman.
Known as the "Blind Sheikh," Abdel-Rahman was sentenced to life in jail for plotting to blow up New York landmarks, including the United Nations. In 2003, Mukasey was the first judge tasked to review the status of Jose Padilla, who had been arrested the previous year on suspicion he was planning to detonate a radioactive bomb in the United States.
Mukasey upheld the president's deeply controversial order to place Padilla, a US national, in secret military detention without charge. But to the White House's consternation, he also ruled that Padilla must have access to a lawyer. As attorney general he has been a vigorous supporter of the Bush administration's use of broad powers to combat terrorism.
Prior to his swearing in, the former judge denounced a 2002 Justice Department memorandum that offered an extremely restrictive definition of torture and authorised, in the name of presidential war powers, some controversial interrogation techniques.
Mukasey, Bush's third attorney general in nearly eight years, had come under fire during the nomination process for refusing to state whether he believed waterboarding was a form of torture. In January 2008, he said waterboarding was not currently authorised for CIA interrogations, but also said he would not answer questions from Congress on the technique's legality in general.
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