Attorney General Michael Mukasey faced a Democratic browbeating Wednesday, but it was mild compared to the bipartisan ire predecessor Alberto Gonzales endured in the same hot seat nearly a year ago.

Mukasey addressed the Senate Judiciary Committee members’ questions carefully, with gracious but firm responses. He balanced the Justice Department’s desire to give intelligence officers the tools they need to fight terrorists with the responsibility to protect people’s privacy.

Those policy changes would not allow the FBI to investigate Americans solely because of race or ethnicity, Mukasey said. He was less decisive when Feingold followed up by asking whether people might be investigated based on their ethnicity, travel habits and whether they own a gun.

“The nature of evidence gathered and the way that it’s gathered will be subject to review,” he said.

Some of the harshest questions dealt with Gonzales and allegations that many divisions of the Department of Justice (DoJ) were politicized during his tenure.

In his opening statement, Mukasey said he takes allegations of politicization with the “utmost seriousness.”

“It is crucial that we pursue our cases based solely on the law … and the American people have complete confidence in the propriety of what we do,” he said.

Mukasey acknowledged that the DoJ’s Inspector General found the department was politicized under Gonzales, but he would not say whether he agreed with that determination.

“The [DoJ’s Inspector General] said it was,” he said in response to questions.

“What do you think? You act as though you float above the ether,” retorted Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.).

Mukasey responded that when he arrived at DoJ, he found “enormously dedicated” people who wanted to help him succeed. At the same time, he said criticism that the DoJ had been politicized was justified.

“You sound like a State Department guy,” Biden replied. “You’re an enigma to me.”

Gonzales resigned in August 2007 after a number of controversies, including DoJ’s role in the dismissals of nine U.S. attorneys.

Later in the hearing, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) lectured Mukasey about his answers. She referred to former Deputy Attorney General James Comey’s dramatic congressional testimony that Gonzales and President Bush’s chief of staff, Andrew Card, showed up at an intensive care unit and tried to persuade then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to reauthorize Bush’s domestic surveillance program. Ashcroft was ill at the time and refused to sign off. The visit was the start of a dramatic showdown between the White House and the Justice Department over the program in 2004.

“If that’s not politicization, I don’t know what is,” Feinstein said.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) again asked Mukasey about the administration’s positions on torture and wiretapping, key parts of his confirmation battle last year. Justice Department lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) came up with the expansive interpretations of the law, and Leahy wanted to know if Mukasey had reviewed these opinions to determine whether he thought they were consistent with the law.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) asked the same question of Mukasey at a hearing in January, and Leahy reminded Mukasey on Wednesday that he had pledged at the time to review the legal memos.

Mukasey said he had reviewed most of the opinions but would not discuss them or provide an index of all the OLC opinions on torture and wiretapping.

“I cannot make a commitment to open the drawers of the OLC to this committee, nor would I think it’s appropriate to do so,” Mukasey said.

Leahy accused Mukasey of failing to fulfill his promise to review the memos, which he argued amounted to “turning a blind eye to the excesses they have allowed and may continue to allow if they are not withdrawn.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) asked whether Mukasey had had time to determine whether waterboarding constitutes torture.

When Mukasey said that he hadn’t because waterboarding is no longer part of the interrogation program, Whitehouse commented, “I detect a very pronounced reluctance to look backwards.”

Leahy also inquired about the status of the investigation into the anthrax scare, which inspired widespread fear across the country and shuttered the Senate shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Letters containing anthrax spores that were mailed to several news media, as well as Leahy and then-Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), and killed five people and infected 17 others.

“Nobody has been convicted and five people are dead and hundreds of millions have been spent [on the investigation],” Leahy said.

Mukasey said only that it is an active investigation and declined to comment.