I did criticize that. I was a politician, we had a campaign on.

I believe that it is important for the American people to know that when an individual is sentenced to prison they are not subjected to cruel and inhuman punishment under the Constitution at a minimum.

I would defend the statute, if it is reasonably defensible, yes. It is passed by Congress; it would be the duty of the Attorney General, whether they voted for it or support it, to defend it.

Not unless it is such that they cannot perform their duties in an honorable way, consistent with the law.

I think the American people are entitled to know, of those who are committing terror plots against us, how many are coming in through a broken immigration system.

Protecting the people of this country from crime, and especially from violent crime, is a high calling of the men and women of the Department of Justice.

I do believe that the law has been passed by Congress. I am interested to see how it plays out in the real world.

That is the core responsibility of the Attorney General, absolutely.

I believe we have failed in dealing with criminal aliens.

It does represent unjustifiable failures that we are seeing too often in our system today.

I did, for a number of reasons.

if you take that position, you are not portrayed as being wrong on the Tribal issue; you are portrayed as being against a bill that would protect women from violence

Well, Senator, they won those cases. They took them to court and eventually won a monumental victory.

I believe the United States should have an immigration policy that is fair and objective and gives people from all over the world the right to apply.

As the law is to be applied, yes.

At the Department of Justice you are not required to be a judge to be a prosecutor.

That is a very insightful or probing question, and it touches on a lot of the important issues that I, as Attorney General, would need to deal with.

We could work out a lot more of these issues rather than having the heavy hand of the Federal litigation system come to play into forcing compliance by States.

Well, I would have to make a legal decision on that. I am not able to do so today.

I am honored to have your support, Senator Hatch.

It is perfectly proper, decent, and correct that this Nation not allow people who come here on a visa or illegally to remain here after they have committed crimes.

Rapid DNA analysis is a hugely important issue for the whole American criminal justice system.

I believe the Court struck that statute down.

I abhor the Klan and what it represents and its hateful ideology.

I believe in background check laws, and many of them are appropriate.