We respect the role of the Senate. We respect the authority of the Senate to look at the qualifications of Judge Roberts, and at the end of the day I'm optimistic that if given a fair hearing and a fair opportunity, that he will be confirmed.

At the end of the day, you realize that this is important stuff, but it isn't as important as how my kids feel about me. That's how I'm going to measure my success - not how I did as counsel to the president or as attorney general. How did I do as a dad?

Let me just say that anything that I say about what's going on at Justice is pure speculation. Obviously, you know, I'm just going based on my experience as the attorney general, but, yeah, surprised because typically you don't talk about investigations. And it kind of surprised me that that letter went out, and I suppose that the reason for it is because we're in the middle of a presidential campaign. But nonetheless, I think it would be contrary to typical protocol.

I respect very much the role of the media in our society; I think they can be very, very helpful. They serve as a very useful check, sort of a watchdog over the actions of the government, and I respect that.

In my judgement, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.

We haven't seen a situation where you have the FBI director talk about an investigation side by side with the attorney general who confirms, yes, I accept the recommendation of the FBI director.

I respect very much the role of the media in our society; I think they can be very, very helpful. They serve as a very useful check, sort of a watchdog over the actions of the government, and I respect that. But there is a competing interest, and that is the ability of prosecutors to get information that may be absolutely essential to assist them in the investigation of illegal wrongdoing. And so you've got these two competing interests. I believe that the current policy at the Department of Justice reflects a careful balancing of those interests.