Trump’s pick as attorney general grilled in senate

UNITED STATES: President-elect Donald Trump’s candidate for attorney general said he was against banning Muslims from entering the country and would enforce a 2015 law that outlawed waterboarding terrorism suspects, even though he had opposed the law.

During the 2016 election campaign Trump said waterboarding, which simulates drowning and is widely regarded as torture, was an effective technique and vowed to bring it back and make it ‘‘a hell of a lot worse.’’

Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, a close ally of Trump’s and his nominee to be attorney general, told a Senate confirmation hearing that the law was ‘‘not the right step’’ and should not have applied to the ‘‘higher ups’’ in the military and intelligence community.

However with his remarks on enforcing the law, he indicated a willingness to resist the presidentelect.

The hearing for Sessions, in line to be the country’s top prosecutor and legal adviser to the president, was the first in a series this week for nominees to Trump’s Cabinet ahead of the January 20 inauguration. Protesters charging Sessions has a poor record on human rights interrupted the proceedings several times.

Sessions, 70, became the first sitting senator to endorse Trump for the presidency in early 2016 and has remained an adviser on issues such as immigration. He is being reviewed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, a panel on which he serves, and is widely expected to be confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate.

On another counterterrorism issue, Sessions said he would not support banning anyone from the United States on the basis of religion, and said Trump’s intentions were to block people coming from countries harbouring terrorists, not all Muslims. During his campaign, Trump at one point proposed a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country.

Sessions also said he would recuse himself from investigating Hillary Clinton’s email practices and charitable foundation if confirmed as attorney general, and he would favour the appointment of a special prosecutor for any such investigation.

‘‘I have said a few things,’’ Sessions said about his comments during the presidential race accusing former Democratic presidential candidate Clinton of illegal activity. ‘‘I think that is one of the reasons why I should not make a decision in that case.’’

Trump, who defeated Clinton in the November 8 election, said during the campaign that if elected he would ask his attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor to see that Clinton go to prison for her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state and her relationship with her family’s charitable foundation.

‘‘We can never have a political dispute turn into a criminal dispute,’’ Sessions said. ‘‘This country does not punish its political enemies but this country ensures that no one is above the law.’’

Sessions, who has represented the deeply conservative Southern state of Alabama for 20 years, has several times defended himself against charges of racism. He said allegations that he harboured sympathies toward the Ku Klux Klan, a violent white supremacist organisation, are false. ‘‘I abhor the Klan and what it represents and its hateful ideology,’’ Sessions said in opening remarks. Reuters