Watch Live Stream: Jeff Sessions Declares Independence In Attorney General Confirmation Hearing

WASHINGTON, DC — Under scrutiny by a committee he himself has been a member of for years, Sen. Jeff Sessions said Tuesday the controversial interrogation tactic of waterboarding is "absolutely" illegal.

The answer — during his first day of confirmation hearings for the position of U.S. attorney general — put Sessions at odds with campaign statements made by President-elect Donald Trump, who nominated him to the post last month.

During a morning and early afternoon of mostly congenial questions and answers, Sessions sought to establish himself as a future top U.S. attorney who would operate independently from the president who appointed him.

He said he disagrees with a total ban on Muslim immigration into the United States, another idea Trump floated during the campaign.

And if criminal charges were to be brought against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — Trump's Democratic opponent — Sessions said he would want it to be done by a special prosecutor. Trump threatened as much against Clinton during one of the pair's presidential debates.

Sessions is the first of Trump's appointees to receive a hearing, and the setting should be a familiar one for the Alabama politician. Sessions has sat as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee for much of his 20-year tenure in Congress.

But, in this case, familiarity may not always equal comfort.

Considered one of the most conservative members of the Senate, Sessions has a history as a lawmaker and attorney that troubles civil rights advocates.

In fact, the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1986 denied Sessions an appointment to a lifetime federal judgeship after witnesses testified that he had made racially insensitive comments.

The comments included Sessions saying that he thought the KKK was "all right" until learning that its members smoked marijuana. Sessions and his supporters have passed off such comments as bad attempts at humor.

Others point to his 1985 attempted prosecution of black voting-rights activists in Alabama, concerns that he is too pro-police in incidents of officer-involved violence and an anti-immigration stance some advocates call harsh.

Little acrimony was apparent in early questioning, though, even from Democratic senators.

But before Tuesday's hearing even began, protesters — some dressed like KKK members — were removed from the committee room.

Sessions, 69, was the first sitting U.S. senator to endorse Trump.

In nominating Sessions last month, Trump called him "a highly respected member of the U.S. Senate."

"He is a world-class legal mind and considered a truly great Attorney General and U.S. Attorney in the state of Alabama," Trump said in a written statement. "Jeff is greatly admired by legal scholars and virtually everyone who knows him."

The confirmation hearings, which are expected to extend into Wednesday, began at 9:30 a.m.

You may watch live on YouTube or on C-SPAN, which plans to air Tuesday's hearings in their entirety.

Photo by Gage Skidmore, via Wikimedia Commons