Hatch again tried to protect Alito from more criticism about his participation in a case involving the Vanguard Group in 2002. Alito's critics have pointed to a statement made during his confirmation hearing to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals that he would recuse himself from cases involving Vanguard, a mutual fund company, because he had investments in the firm.

Hatch said that Alito had promised to recuse himself during his "initial service," which does not mean 12 years later, which is when Alito heard the Vanguard case. He later recused himself and the case was retried.

But Kennedy latched on to Alito's responses to Hatch.

"How long, when you made that pledge and that promise to the committee, how long did you intend to keep it?" Kennedy asked. "And when that time was up, did you ever imagine that you would get back to the committee and say, I believe my time is up on Vanguard?"

Alito did not give a specific time frame for when the recusal ended and said that is not what he was thinking when he participated in the case. He said he made the statement during his previous confirmation hearing to show he would have an ethical position.

"What I was trying to express was basically the policy that I followed during all my years on the bench, which is to bend over backwards to make sure that I didn't do anything that came close to violating the code of conduct or give anybody the impression that I was doing anything that was improper," Alito said.

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Contributing: Associated Press

E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com

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