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Alberto Gonzales

December 07, 2023

For other people named Alberto González, see Alberto González (disambiguation).

Alberto R. Gonzales (born August 4, 1955) is an American lawyer who served as the 80th United States Attorney General from 2005 to 2007 and is the highest-ranking Hispanic American in executive government to date.[1] He previously served as Secretary of State of Texas, as a Texas Supreme Court Justice, and as White House Counsel, becoming the first Hispanic to hold that office.

Alberto Gonzales
Official portrait, 2005
80th United States Attorney General
In office
February 3, 2005 – September 17, 2007
PresidentGeorge W. Bush
DeputyJames Comey
Paul McNulty
Craig S. Morford (acting)
Preceded byJohn Ashcroft
Succeeded byMichael Mukasey
White House Counsel
In office
January 20, 2001 – February 3, 2005
PresidentGeorge W. Bush
Preceded byBeth Nolan
Succeeded byHarriet Miers
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas
In office
January 3, 1999 – January 20, 2001
Appointed byGeorge W. Bush
Preceded byRaul Gonzalez
Succeeded byWallace B. Jefferson
100th Secretary of State of Texas
In office
January 1, 1998 – January 3, 1999
GovernorGeorge W. Bush
Preceded byTony Garza
Succeeded byElton Bomer
Personal details
Born (1955-08-04) August 4, 1955 (age 68)
San Antonio, Texas, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
Spouse(s)Diana Clemens (div. 1985)
Rebecca Turner
Children3
EducationUnited States Air Force Academy
Rice University (BA)
Harvard University (JD)
Military service
Allegiance United States
Branch/service United States Air Force
Years of service1973–1975
Alberto Gonzales's voice
Alberto Gonzales testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on antiterrorism efforts and Justice Department authority
Recorded July 18, 2006

Gonzales's tenure as U.S. Attorney General was marked by controversy regarding warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens and the legal authorization of "enhanced interrogation techniques", later generally acknowledged as constituting torture, in the U.S. government's post-9/11 "War on Terror". Gonzales had also presided over the firings of several U.S. Attorneys who had refused back-channel White House directives to prosecute political enemies, allegedly causing the office of Attorney General to become improperly politicized.[2] Following calls for his removal, Gonzales resigned from the office "in the best interests of the department," on August 27, 2007, effective September 17, 2007.[3][4]

In 2008, Gonzales began a mediation and consulting practice. Additionally, he taught a political science course and served as a diversity recruiter at Texas Tech University. Gonzales is currently the Dean of Belmont University College of Law, in Nashville, Tennessee, where he teaches National Security Law. He was formerly Of Counsel at a Nashville-based law firm—Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, LLP—where he advised clients on special matters, government investigations and regulatory matters.

Early life and education edit

Gonzales was born to a Catholic family[5] in San Antonio, Texas, and raised in Humble, Texas, a town outside of Houston. Of Mexican descent, he was the second of eight children born to Maria (Rodriguez) and Pablo M. Gonzales.[6][non-primary source needed] His father, who died in 1982, was a migrant worker and then a construction worker with a second grade education. His mother worked at home raising eight children and had a sixth grade education. Gonzales and his family of ten lived in a small, two-bedroom home built by his father and uncles with no telephone and no hot running water.[1] According to Gonzales, he is unaware whether immigration documentation exists for three of his grandparents who were born in Mexico and may have entered and resided in the United States illegally.[7]

An honors student at MacArthur High School in unincorporated Harris County, Gonzales enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1973, for a four-year term of enlistment. He served one year at a remote radar site with 100 other GIs at Fort Yukon, Alaska. He was then released from active duty to attend the USAFA Prep School after which he received an appointment to the United States Air Force Academy.[8] Prior to beginning his third year at the academy, which would have caused him to incur a further service obligation, he left the Academy and was released from the enlistment contract. He transferred to Rice University in Houston, where he was a resident of Lovett College.[9] He went on to be selected as the Charles Parkhill Scholar of Political Science and was awarded a bachelor's degree with honors in political science in 1979.[10] He then earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Harvard Law School in 1982.

Gonzales has been married twice: he and his first wife, Diane Clemens, divorced in 1985; he and his second wife, Rebecca Turner Gonzales, have three sons.

Early career edit

Gonzales was an attorney in private practice from 1982 until 1994 with the Houston law firm Vinson and Elkins, where he became a partner – one of the first Hispanic partners in its history – and where he worked primarily with corporate clients. In 1994, he was named general counsel to then-Texas Governor George W. Bush, rising to become Secretary of State of Texas in 1997 and subsequently named to the Texas Supreme Court in 1999, both appointments made by Governor Bush. Gonzales won his election bid to remain on the court in the Republican Primary in 2000, and was subsequently elected to a full six-year term on the State Supreme Court in the November 2000 general election.[11]

Recognition edit

Gonzales has been active in the community, serving as board director or committee member for several non-profit organizations between 1985 and 1994.

In the legal sphere Gonzales provided pro bono legal services to the Host Committee for the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston, acted as a board director for the State Bar of Texas from 1991 to 1994, and was board trustee of the Texas Bar Foundation from 1996 to 1999. He has received numerous professional awards, including the Presidential Citation from the State Bar of Texas in 1997 in claimed recognition of his dedication to addressing basic legal needs of the indigent. In 1999, he was named Latino Lawyer of the Year by the Hispanic National Bar Association.

Between 2002 and 2003, Gonzales was recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus of Rice University and received the Harvard Law School Association Award, John Ben Shepperd Public Leadership Institute Outstanding Texas Leader Award, United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce President's Award, League of United Latin American Citizens President's Award, the Gary L. McPherson Distinguished Alumni Award from the American Council of Young Political Leaders, the Chairman's Leadership Award from the Texas Association of Mexican American Chamber of Commerce, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund's Truinfador Award, the Hispanic Hero Award from the Association for the Advancement of Mexican Americans, the Good Neighbor Award from the United States-Mexican Chamber of Commerce, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Travis County, Texas Republican Party. In 2004, Gonzales was given the Exemplary Leader Award by the Houston American Leadership Forum. In 2005 he was given the Hector Barreto, Sr. Award by the Latino Coalition and a President's Award by the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

As the son of former migrant workers, many believed Gonzales's appointment as Attorney General of the United States to be an example of the American dream. He was named Hispanic American of the Year by Hispanic magazine in 2005 and one of the 25 Most Influential Hispanics in America by Time magazine. Gonzales was inducted into the Class of 2005 in the American Academy of Achievement.[12] Gonzales received the Distinguished Leadership Award in 2006 from Leadership Houston. In 2007, as he left government service, he was given the Director's Award from the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service.

On May 20, 2006, Houston Mayor Bill White proclaimed "Alberto R. Gonzales Day" in Houston in recognition of what was believed to be his contributions to the betterment of the City of Houston. Academic institutions have also recognized Gonzales's achievements. He received an Honorary Doctor of Laws in 2002 from The Catholic University of America; an Honorary Degree in Arts and Letters in 2003 from Miami-Dade Community College; an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws in 2005 from the University of District of Columbia; an Honorary Degree in Associate of Arts in 2005 from the Houston Community College System; and an Honorary Alumnus Award in 2007 from Southern Methodist University.

Counsel to Governor Bush edit

As counsel to Governor Bush, Gonzales helped advise Bush in connection with jury duty when he was called in a 1996 Travis County drunk driving case. The case led to controversy during Bush's 2000 presidential campaign because Bush's answers to the potential juror questionnaire did not disclose Bush's own 1976 misdemeanor drunk driving conviction.[13] Gonzales made no formal request for Bush to be excused from jury duty but raised a possible conflict of interest because as the Governor, Bush might be called upon to pardon the accused party. Gonzales's work in this case has been described as "canny lawyering".[14]

As Governor Bush's counsel in Texas, Gonzales also reviewed all clemency requests. A 2003 article in The Atlantic Monthly asserted that Gonzales gave insufficient counsel, and failed to second-guess convictions and failed appeals. Gonzales's deputy general counsel from 1995 to 1999, Pete Wassdorf, in turn sought to defend Gonzales from what he characterized as an inaccurate and incomplete picture of the clemency process under Bush.[15][16] Under Section II, Article 4 of the Texas Constitution, the Governor cannot grant a pardon or commute a death sentence except with a majority vote recommendation of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, so Bush was constrained in granting clemency even if he had wanted to do so in a case. The fact remains that only one death sentence was overturned by Governor Bush, and the state of Texas executed more prisoners during Gonzales's term than any other state.[17][18]

White House Counsel edit

As White House counsel, and later as attorney general, Gonzales served president George W. Bush through a period of escalating controversy over the legality of U.S. policies in the fight against terrorism. Gonzales approved the legal framework for the administration's anti-terrorism efforts and was a reliable advocate for White House policy. He supported positions that enlarged the power of the executive and diminished protections for interrogation subjects. These rulings were vocally challenged by many scholars and human-rights advocates and were partly overturned by the courts. He resigned following sharp criticism of his handling of the firing of nine U.S. attorneys and subsequent testimony during congressional hearings.[19]

Support for use of torture edit

Main article: Torture Memos

Gonzalez was a supporter of the Bush administration's policy of torture of detainees, internally referred to as "Enhanced interrogation techniques".

In January 2002, Gonzales authored a memo that explored whether the Geneva Convention section III on the Treatment of Prisoners of War (GPW) applied to Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters captured in Afghanistan and held in detention facilities around the world, including Camp X-Ray in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The memo made several arguments both for and against providing GPW protection to al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. The memo concluded that certain provisions of GPW were outdated and ill-suited for dealing with captured Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters: "[The war against terrorism] is not the traditional clash between nations adhering to the laws of war that formed the backdrop for GPW. The nature of the new war places a high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians, and the need to try terrorists for war crimes such as wantonly killing civilians."[20]

Gonzales later explained, "The old ways may not work here. That's what the memo was intended to convey to the President. I never meant to convey to the President that the basic values in the Geneva Convention were outdated." He noted that a British parliamentary committee visiting Guantánamo, while horrified by conditions at the base, had reached a similar conclusion when it said, "the Geneva Conventions are failing to provide necessary protection because they lack clarity and are out of date".[21] He argued that existing military regulations and instructions from the President were more than adequate to ensure that the principles of the Geneva Convention would be applied. He also expressed a concern that undefined language in Common Article III of GPW, such as "outrages upon personal dignity" and "inhuman treatment" could make officials and military leaders subject to the War Crimes Act of 1996 if actions were deemed to constitute violations of the Act.[20] Attorney General John Ashcroft made a similar argument on behalf of the Justice Department by letter to the President dated February 1, 2002, writing that a presidential determination "against treaty application would provide the highest assurance that no court would subsequently entertain charges that American military officers, intelligence officials or law enforcement officials violated Geneva Convention rules relating to field conduct, detention conduct or interrogation of detainees. The War Crimes Act of 1996 makes violations of parts of the Geneva Convention a crime in the United States."[22]

Gonzalez oversaw President Bush's Office of Legal Counsel on August 1, 2002, at which time the OLC produced the Bybee memo, a document that provided the legal framework by which previous interpretations of the Geneva Convention and the United Nations Convention Against Torture were modified to expand Presidential authority to enable so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques".[23]

The memo was produced in response to a specific CIA request for clarification of the standards of interrogation under U.S. law, in the specific case of Abu Zabaydah, a man believed at the time to be a high-level al-Qaeda leader. In response, the Justice Department issued a classified August 1, 2002, memo[24] to the CIA from Jay Bybee, the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, and an August 1, 2002, legal opinion[25] to Gonzales from Jay Bybee defining torture as an act specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering.

Journalists including Jane Mayer, Joby Warrick and Peter Finn, and Alex Koppelman have reported the CIA was already using these harsh tactics before the memo authorizing their use was written,[23][26][27][28][29] and that it was used to provide after-the-fact legal support for harsh interrogation techniques.[30] A Department of Justice 2009 report regarding prisoner abuses reportedly stated the memos were prepared one month after Abu Zubaydah had already been subjected to the specific techniques authorized in the August 1, 2002, memo.[31] John Kiriakou stated in July 2009 that Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded in the early summer of 2002, months before the August 1, 2002, memo was written.[32][33]

The memo described ten techniques that the interrogators wanted to use: "(1) attention grasp, (2) walling, (3) facial hold, (4) facial slap (insult slap), (5) cramped confinement, (6) wall standing, (7) stress positions, (8) sleep deprivation, (9) insects placed in a confinement box, and (10) the waterboard."[34] Many of the techniques were, until then, generally considered illegal.[23][26][27][35][36][37] Many other techniques developed by the CIA were held to constitute inhumane and degrading treatment and torture under the United Nations Convention against Torture and Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.[35] As reported later, many of these interrogation techniques were previously considered illegal under U.S. and international law and treaties at the time of Abu Zubaydah's capture.[35][36] For instance, the United States had prosecuted Japanese military officials after World War II and American soldiers after the Vietnam War for waterboarding.[36] Since 1930, the United States had defined sleep deprivation as an illegal form of torture.[26] Many other techniques developed by the CIA constitute inhuman and degrading treatment and torture under the United Nations Convention against Torture, and Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.[35]

In May 2005, three months after Gonzales became attorney general, Steven G. Bradbury of the Office of Legal Counsel issued a pair of classified opinions that, for the first time, provided Central Intelligence Agency explicit authorization to apply to terror suspects a variety of painful physical and psychological interrogation methods, either alone or in combination.[38][39] The approved techniques included striking a prisoner, exposure to extreme temperatures, stress positions, walling, sleep deprivation for up to 180 hours (7+1⁄2 days), and the simulated drowning procedure known as "waterboarding". These secret memos superseded a previous, unclassified legal opinion that declared torture "abhorrent."[40] Nevertheless, the classified opinions claimed that their reasoning and conclusions were based upon and fully consistent with the previous legal opinion. Gonzales reportedly approved the May 10, 2005, classified legal memoranda over the policy objections of James B. Comey, the outgoing deputy attorney general, who told colleagues at the Justice Department that they would all be "ashamed" when the world eventually learned of it.[39] Patrick Leahy and John Conyers, chairmen of the respective Senate and House Judiciary Committees, requested that the Justice Department turn over documents related to the classified 2005 legal opinions to their committees for review.[41]

In 2009, The Obama administration stated it would abide by the Geneva Convention and described some of the enhanced interrogation techniques established under Attorney General Gonzales's tenure as torture.[42] On January 22, 2009, President Obama signed an executive order requiring the CIA to use only the 19 interrogation methods outlined in the United States Army Field Manual on interrogations "unless the Attorney General with appropriate consultation provides further guidance.")[43] Bradbury's memoranda were publicly released by the Obama Administration on April 16, 2009.[44]

Objectivity edit

Gonzales had a long relationship with former president George W. Bush. Gonzales served as a general counsel when Bush was the governor of Texas. Such relationship made critics question whether he would maintain independence in his administration of the U.S. Department of Justice.[45][46] Gonzales has been called Bush's "yes man." Even though the advice given by Gonzales was based and supported by other lawyers, specifically the Department of Justice, charged by statute to provide legal advice to the President, critics claim that Gonzales gave only the legal advice Bush wanted. Critics questioned Gonzales's ethics and professional conduct.[47][48]

"To his backers, Gonzales is a quiet, hardworking attorney general notable for his open management style and his commitment to the administration of justice and to the war on terrorism."[49]

One publication reported, "Gonzales contends that his friendship with Bush makes him a better advocate for the rule of law within the executive branch." My responsibilities is to ensure that the laws are enforced, that everyone in the country receives justice under the law—independent of my relationship with the White House, independent of my relationship with the President of the United States," he told National Journal.[49] Another report states that Gonzales has "a long history of dogged obedience to the President, which often has come at the cost of institutional independence and adherence to the rule of law."[48]

Executive Order 13233 edit

Executive Order 13233, drafted by Gonzales and issued by President George W. Bush on November 1, 2001, shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, attempted to place limitations on the Freedom of Information Act by restricting access to the records of former presidents. The order asserted the President's power to delay the release of presidential records longer than the congressionally mandated period of 12 years after the president leaves office. Executive Order 13233 revoked President Ronald Reagan's Executive Order 12667 on the same subject and had the effect of delaying the release of Reagan's papers, which were due to be made public when Bush took office in 2001. While the policy was being drawn up, Gonzales as Counsel to the President issued a series of orders to the U.S. Archivist to delay the release of Reagan's records.[50] This order was the subject of a number of lawsuits and Congressional attempts to overturn it. In 2007, a D.C. district court ordered the Archivist not to obey this order, finding it to be "arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act."[51] On January 21, 2009 (his first day in office), President Barack Obama revoked Executive Order 13233 by issuing Executive Order 13489, with wording largely matching Reagan's Executive Order 12667.

Energy Task Force secrecy edit

Gonzales fought with Congress to keep Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force documents from being reviewed. His arguments were ultimately upheld by courts. On July 2, 2004, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Vice President, but remanded the case back to the D.C. Circuit. On May 11, 2005, the D.C. Circuit threw out the lawsuit and ruled the Vice President was free to meet in private with energy industry representatives in 2001 while drawing up the President's energy policy.[52]

Attorney general edit

 
U.S. President George W. Bush announces his nomination of Gonzales to succeed Ashcroft as the next Attorney General during a press conference in the Roosevelt Room Wednesday, November 10, 2004.
 
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor presents Gonzales to the audience after swearing him in as Attorney General, as Mrs. Gonzales looks on.

Gonzales's name was sometimes floated as a possible nominee to the United States Supreme Court during Bush's first presidential term. On November 10, 2004, it was announced that he would be nominated to replace United States Attorney General John Ashcroft for Bush's second term. Gonzales was regarded as a moderate compared to Ashcroft because he was not seen as opposing abortion or affirmative action. Although he has never stated publicly his support for abortion and later as attorney general, was the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case Gonzales v. Carhart, which reinforced the ban on late-term abortion that was previously overturned, and had stated publicly his opposition to racial quotas, some people assumed Gonzales did not oppose abortion or affirmative action. According to a Texas Monthly article, Gonzales has never said he was pro-choice and he has publicly opposed racial quotas.[14]

The perceived departure from some conservative viewpoints elicited strong opposition to Gonzales that started during his Senate confirmation proceedings at the beginning of President Bush's second term. The New York Times quoted anonymous Republican officials as saying that Gonzales's appointment to attorney general was a way to "bolster Mr. Gonzales's credentials" en route to a later Supreme Court appointment.[53]

Gonzales enjoyed broad bipartisan support in connection with his nomination, including the support of former Democratic HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros and Colorado Democratic Senator Ken Salazar. One writer noted, "A senator from Pennsylvania said, 'I have always found him [Alberto Gonzales] to be completely forthright, brutally honest – in some cases telling me things I did not want to hear but always forthright, always honest, sincere, serious. This is a serious man who takes the responsibilities that have been given to him as a great privilege and a great honor which he holds very carefully and gently in his hands.' Said another senator, this one from Kentucky, 'Judge Gonzales is proof that in America, there are no artificial barriers to success. A man or woman can climb to any height that his or her talents can take them. For Judge Gonzales, that is a very high altitude indeed. And luckily for his country, he is not quite finished climbing yet.'"[1] The nomination was approved on February 3, 2005, with the confirming vote largely split along party lines 60–36 (54 Republicans and 6 Democrats in favor, and 36 Democrats against, along with 4 abstentions: 3 Democrat and 1 Republican).[54] He was sworn in on February 3, 2005.

Right to writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. Constitution edit

Main article: Habeas_corpus_in_the_United_States § Habeas_corpus_in_the_21st_Century

Gonzales helped draft the January 2002 Presidential Order that authorized the use of military tribunals to try terrorist suspects. The order provided the President the power to hold any non-citizen who he deemed a terrorist, or accessory to a terrorist, in military detention and subject to trial before a military commission.[55] Subsequently the United States Department of Defense (DOD) organized military tribunals to judge charges against enemy combatant detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay detention camp. In the early years, the camp authorities did not allow foreign detainees access to attorneys, or materials supporting their charges, and the executive branch declared them outside the reach of due process under habeas corpus. In Rasul v. Bush (2004), the US Supreme Court ruled that they did have rights to habeas corpus and had to be provided access to legal counsel and an opportunity to challenge their detention before an impartial tribunal. Further, in 2006, the Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that trying Guantanamo Bay detainees under the existing Guantanamo military commission (known also as Military Tribunal) was illegal under US law, including the Geneva Conventions.[56]

The president requested and Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006.[57] The bill was controversial for continuing to authorize the President to designate certain people as "unlawful enemy combatants," thus making them subject to military commissions, and depriving them of habeas corpus. In Boumediene v. Bush (2008), the US Supreme Court ruled that foreign detainees held by the United States, including those at Guantanamo Bay detention camp, did have the right of habeas corpus under the US constitution, as the US had sole authority at the Guantanamo Bay base. It held that the 2006 Military Commissions Act was an unconstitutional suspension of that right.

On January 18, 2007, Gonzales was invited to speak to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he shocked the committee's ranking member, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, with statements regarding the right of habeas corpus in the United States Constitution.[58] An excerpt of the exchange follows:

Gonzales: The fact that the Constitution—again, there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution. There is a prohibition against taking it away. But it's never been the case, and I'm not a Supreme—

Specter: Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute. The Constitution says you can't take it away, except in the case of rebellion or invasion. Doesn't that mean you have the right of habeas corpus, unless there is an invasion or rebellion?[59]

Gonzales: I meant by that comment, the Constitution doesn't say, "Every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right to habeas." It doesn't say that. It simply says the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended except by —[59][60]

Senator Specter was referring to 2nd Clause of Section 9 of Article One of the Constitution of the United States, which reads: "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." This passage has been historically interpreted to mean that the right of habeas corpus is inherently established.[61] Gonzales dissents from the consensus view, siding with Professor Erwin Chemerinsky, who said "[a]though the Constitution prohibits Congress from suspending the writ of habeas corpus except during times of rebellion or invasion, this provision was probably meant to keep Congress from suspending the writ and preventing state courts from releasing individuals who were wrongfully imprisoned. The constitutional provision does not create a right to habeas corpus; rather federal statutes [do so]."[62] Additionally, "the Constitutional Convention prevented Congress from obstructing the states courts' ability to grant the writ, but did not try to create a federal constitutional right to habeas corpus".[63] "After all, if the suspension clause itself were an affirmative grant of procedural rights to those held in federal custody, there would have been little need for the first Congress to enact as it did, habeas corpus protections in the Judiciary Act of 1789." Chemerinsky's argument has been denied by Justice Paul Stevens in a 2001 opinion in an immigration case involving the issue, where Stevens touches upon what he believes the 'far more sensible view':

The dissent reads into Chief Justice Marshall's opinion in Ex parte Bollman, 4 Cranch 75 (1807), support for a proposition that the Chief Justice did not endorse, either explicitly or implicitly. See post, at 14—15. He did note that "the first congress of the United States" acted under "the immediate influence" of the injunction provided by the Suspension Clause when it gave "life and activity" to "this great constitutional privilege" in the Judiciary Act of 1789, and that the writ could not be suspended until after the statute was enacted. 4 Cranch, at 95. That statement, however, surely does not imply that Marshall believed the Framers had drafted a Clause that would proscribe a temporary abrogation of the writ, while permitting its permanent suspension. Indeed, Marshall's comment expresses the far more sensible view that the Clause was intended to preclude any possibility that "the privilege itself would be lost" by either the inaction or the action of Congress. See, e.g., ibid. (noting that the Founders "must have felt, with peculiar force, the obligation" imposed by the Suspension Clause).[64]

Justice Stevens' assertion is backed up by sentiments found in the Federalist No. 84, which enshrines the right to petition for habeas corpus as fundamental:

The establishment of the writ of habeas corpus, the prohibition of ex post facto laws, and of TITLES OF NOBILITY, to which we have no corresponding provision in our Constitution, are perhaps greater securities to liberty and republicanism than any it contains. The creation of crimes after the commission of the fact, or, in other words, the subjecting of men to punishment for things which, when they were done, were breaches of no law, and the practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny."[61]

The Constitution presupposes that courts in the United States will have the authority to issue the writ as they historically did at common law. See, e.g., Immigration and Naturalization Service v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289 (2001); Felker v. Turpin, 518 U.S. 651, 666 (1996). The Suspension clause of the Constitution provides that "[t]he privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in case of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it." As some commentators have noted, "the text does not explicitly confer a right to habeas relief, but merely sets forth when the Privilege of the Writ may be suspended".[65][66]

As Robert Parry writes in the Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel:

Applying Gonzales's reasoning, one could argue that the First Amendment doesn't explicitly say Americans have the right to worship as they choose, speak as they wish or assemble peacefully. Ironically, Gonzales may be wrong in another way about the lack of specificity in the Constitution's granting of habeas corpus rights. Many of the legal features attributed to habeas corpus are delineated in a positive way in the Sixth Amendment ...[60]

Dismissal of U.S. attorneys edit

Main article: Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy

By law, U.S. Attorneys are appointed for a term of four years, and each U.S. Attorney serves at the pleasure of the President and is subject to removal by the President for any reason, or no reason at all, barring only illegal and improper reasons.[67] When Gonzales became attorney general in 2005, he ordered a performance review of all U.S. Attorneys.[68] On December 7, 2006, seven United States attorneys were notified by the United States Department of Justice that they were being dismissed, after the George W. Bush administration sought their resignation.[69] One more, Bud Cummins, who had been informed of his dismissal in June 2006, announced his resignation on December 15, 2006, effective December 20, 2006, upon being notified of Tim Griffin's appointment as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.[70][71][72] In the subsequent congressional hearings and press reports, it was disclosed that additional U.S. attorneys were controversially dismissed without explanation to the dismissee in 2005 and 2006, and that at least 26 U.S. attorneys were at various times considered for dismissal.

Although U.S. attorneys can be dismissed at the discretion of the president, critics claimed that the dismissals were either motivated by desire to install attorneys more loyal to the Republican party ("loyal Bushies," in the words of Kyle Sampson, Gonzales's former chief of staff) or as retribution for actions or inactions damaging to the Republican party. At least six of the eight had received positive performance reviews at the Department of Justice.[73] DOJ officials Will Moschella and Monica Goodling both testified under oath that EARS evaluations are office-wide reviews, they are not reviews of the U.S. Attorneys themselves.[74][75] Gonzales testified under oath that EARS evaluations do not necessarily reflect on the U.S. Attorney.[76] In other words, these reviews were not evaluations of the performance of the fired federal prosecutors.

In a press conference given on March 13, Gonzales suggested that "incomplete information, was communicated or may have been communicated to the Congress" and he accepted full responsibility.[77][78] Nonetheless, Gonzales avowed that his knowledge of the process to fire and select new US attorneys was limited to how the US attorneys may have been classified as "strong performers, not-as-strong performers, and weak performers." Gonzales also asserted that was all he knew of the process, saying that "[I] was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on. That's basically what I knew as the Attorney General."[77]

Department of Justice records released on March 23, however, appeared to contradict some of the Attorney General's assertions, indicating that on his Nov 27 schedule "he attended an hour-long meeting at which, aides said, he approved a detailed plan for executing the purge."[79] Despite insisting that he was not involved in the "deliberations" leading up to the firing of the attorneys, newly released emails also suggest that he had indeed been notified and that he had given ultimate approval.

In his prepared testimony to Congress on April 19, 2007, Gonzales insisted he left the decisions on the firings to his staff. ABC News, however, obtained an internal department email showing that Gonzales urged the ouster of Carol Lam, one of the fired attorneys, six months before she was asked to leave.[80] During actual testimony on April 19, Gonzales stated at least 71 times that he couldn't recall events related to the controversy.[81] Those dubious explanations led to diminished Senate support for his continued tenure, with even conservative Republicans Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma calling for his resignation.[81]

His responses frustrated the Democrats on the committee, as well as several Republicans. One example of such frustration came in an exchange between Sessions and Gonzales regarding a November 2006 meeting. Sessions was one of the most conservative members of the Senate, and was one of the Bush Administration's staunchest allies. At the meeting, the attorney firings were purportedly discussed, but Gonzales did not remember such discussion. As reported by the Washington Post, the dialogue went as follows:

Gonzales: Well, Senator, putting aside the issue, of course, sometimes people's recollections are different, I have no reason to doubt Mr. Battle's testimony [about the November meeting].

Sessions: Well, I guess I'm concerned about your recollection, really, because it's not that long ago. It was an important issue. And that's troubling to me, I've got to tell you.

Gonzales: Senator, I went back and looked at my calendar for that week. I traveled to Mexico for the inauguration of the new president. We had National Meth Awareness Day. We were working on a very complicated issue relating to CFIUS.

GONZALES: And so there were a lot of other weighty issues and matters that I was dealing with that week.[82]

Another example came when Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, who had been the first lawmaker to call for Gonzales's ouster, declined to ask his last round of questions. Instead, a visibly angry Schumer said there was no point to further questioning and reiterated his call for Gonzales to resign. By Schumer's count, Gonzales had stated "over a hundred times" that he didn't know or couldn't recall important details concerning the firings, and also didn't seem to know about the workings of his own department. Gonzales responded that the onus was on the committee to prove whether anything improper occurred. Schumer replied that Gonzales faced a higher standard, and that under this standard he had to give "a full, complete and convincing explanation" for why the eight attorneys were fired.[83]

Both Democrats and Republicans were critical of Gonzales's testimony to congress, which was widely regarded as exhibiting greater loyalty to president Bush than to the truth.[19] With increasing numbers of senators calling for him to go, Gonzales resigned as attorney general effective September 17, 2007.[84]

The Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility commenced an investigation into the removal of nine U.S. Attorneys and issued a report in September 2008.[85] The report cited serious issues of accountability removing a few of the U.S. Attorneys, but there was no finding that the nine U.S. Attorneys were removed for illegal or improper reasons. To the contrary, the report concluded that Margaret Chiara and Kevin Ryan were removed appropriately for management issues. Paul Charlton was removed for his action relating to a death penalty case and unilateral implementation of an interrogation policy. The report found Carol Lam was removed because of the Justice Department's concerns about the low number of gun and immigration prosecutions in her district. The report concluded John McKay was asked to leave because of his disagreement with the Deputy Attorney General over an information-sharing program.[85] The report could not cite to a reason Dan Bogden was asked to leave, but there was no finding that anything illegal or improper occurred with his removal. The report concluded Bud Cummins was asked to leave to make room for another political appointee that he himself conceded under oath was qualified to serve as a U.S. Attorney. These findings were consistent with testimony given by Gonzales. Politics was clearly involved.[85]

The report also concluded Todd Graves was removed to settle a political dispute in Missouri, which was motivated by politics.[85] The report found that it could not conclude that David Iglesias was removed for an improper reason. Because the IG had no authority to investigate Congress or the White House, the IG asked Attorney General Mukasey to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Iglesias removal.[85] This special prosecutor found no wrongdoing in the removal of Iglesias. The DOJ IG found no criminal wrongdoing in the records.[85] As the Wall Street Journal reported "the Justice Department informed Congress on Wednesday that a special investigator in the case found no evidence of wrongdoing ... the investigator's final word is that no Administration official gave 'false statements' to Congress or to the DOJ Inspector General, which carried out their own investigation."[86] In particular, the report found no evidence that Gonzales made false or misleading statements to Congress, thus clearing him of accusations of perjury.[85][87]

The IG report determined that some statements made by Gonzales at a March 13, 2007, press conference about his involvement were inaccurate. The report did not conclude that Gonzales deliberately provided false information.[85]: 347  He acknowledged from the outset his misstatements, accepted responsibility, and attempted to set the record straight well before congressional testimony on April 19, 2007. Gonzales testified 18 months before the IG reports that statements he made at the March 13, 2007, press conference were misstatements and were overboard.[76] Further, in his written statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, presented April 19, 2007, Gonzales wrote: "I misspoke at a press conference on March 13th when I said that I "was not involved in any discussions about what was going on." That statement was too broad. At that same press conference, I made clear that I was aware of the process; I said, "I knew my Chief of Staff was involved in the process of determining who were the weak performers, where were the districts around the country where we could do better for the people in that district, and that's what I knew". Of course, I knew about the process because of, at a minimum, these discussions with Mr. Sampson. Thus, my statement about "discussions" was imprecise and overboard, but it certainly was not in any way an attempt to mislead the American people."

In August 2009, White House documents released showed that Rove raised concerns directly with Gonzales and that Domenici or an intermediary may have contacted the Justice Department as early as 2005 to complain.[88] In contrast, Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2007: "I don't recall ... Senator Domenici ever requesting that Mr. Iglesias be removed."[88] In July 2010, Department of Justice prosecutors closed the two-year investigation without filing charges after determining that the firings were not criminal, saying "Evidence did not demonstrate that any prosecutable criminal offense was committed with regard to the removal of David Iglesias. The investigative team also determined that the evidence did not warrant expanding the scope of the investigation beyond the removal of Iglesias."[89]

NSA domestic eavesdropping program edit

Main article: NSA warrantless surveillance controversy

Gonzales was an early advocate of the controversial USA PATRIOT Act, which was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush on October 26, 2001. During Gonzales's tenure, the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were accused of improperly, and perhaps illegally, using the USA PATRIOT Act to uncover personal information about U.S. citizens.[90]

In a December 2005 article[91][92] in The New York Times, it was revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) was eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without warrants in cases where (i) NSA intelligence agents had reason to believe at least one party to the call was a member of al Qaeda or a group affiliated with al Qaeda, and (ii) the call was international.[93] The New York Times acknowledged that the activities had been classified, and that it had disclosed the activities over the Administration's objections. As such, Attorney General Gonzales threatened the Times with prosecution under the Espionage Act of 1917,[94] since knowing publication of classified information is a federal crime. Gonzales raised the possibility that The New York Times journalists could be prosecuted for publishing classified information based on the outcome of the criminal investigation underway into leaks to the Times of data about the National Security Agency's surveillance of terrorist-related calls between the United States and abroad. He said, "I understand very much the role that the press plays in our society, the protection under the First Amendment we want to protect and respect ..." As for the Times, he said, "As we do in every case, it's a case-by-case evaluation about what the evidence shows us, our interpretation of the law. We have an obligation to enforce the law and to prosecute those who engage in criminal activity."[94]

The publication led to an investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) over the role of Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers in giving legal advice to support various intelligence collection activities. OPR is responsible for investigating allegations of professional misconduct by DOJ attorneys. The objective of OPR is to ensure that DOJ attorneys perform their duties in accordance with the highest professional standards.

The Bush Administration and Attorney General Gonzales believed that OPR did not have the authority to investigate Gonzales's role as White House Counsel in connection with certain intelligence activities authorized by the President. In response to suggestions that Gonzales blocked the investigation or that the President blocked the investigation to protect Gonzales, Assistant Attorney General Richard Hertling informed Chairman John Conyers on March 22, 2007, that "the President made the decision not to grant the requested security clearances to" OPR staff. Judge Gonzales "was not told he was the subject or target of the OPR investigation, nor did he believe himself to be ..." Judge Gonzales "did not ask the President to shut down or otherwise impede the OPR investigation". Judge Gonzales "recommended to the President that OPR be granted security clearance."[95]

In a letter to the Senate dated August 1, 2007, Gonzales disclosed that shortly after the September 11 attacks, the President authorized the NSA, under a single Presidential Authorization, to engage in a number of intelligence activities, which would later be collectively described as the "President's Surveillance Program" (PSP) by the DOJ Inspector General, Glenn A. Fine.[85] Some of these authorized activities were described as the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" (TSP) by President Bush, in an address to the nation on December 16, 2005. As the August 1 letter indicates, the dispute between the President and James Comey that led to the hospital visit was not over TSP, it concerned other classified intelligence activities that are part of PSP and have not been disclosed. He defended his authorization of the program, asserting "if you are talking with al-Qaeda, we want to know why."[citation needed] In his letter, Gonzales wrote the Senate Judiciary Committee that he defined TSP as the program the President publicly confirmed, a program that targets communications where one party is outside the United States, and as to which the government had reason to believe at least one party to the communication is a member of al-Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist organization.[96] Indeed, prior to the 2007 letter, Gonzales provided the same definition of TSP in several public appearances[97][98][99][100] leading up to a hearing in Congress on February 6, 2006.[101]

In March 2004, the TSP operations, (code-named Stellar Wind,[102]) became the focal point for a dispute between the White House and then-acting-Attorney-General James B. Comey, resulting in a dramatic, late-night meeting between Gonzales, Comey, the bedridden AG John Ashcroft, and other DOJ officials, in a George Washington University Hospital room. According to initial statements by Gonzales, the disagreement was not over TSP; rather, he claimed it concerned other classified intelligence activities that fell under the PSP, which had not been disclosed. Comey contended that the incident, (which had culminated in a heated phone conversation following the hospital visit,) had indeed been over the activities comprising the TSP. Through a spokesperson, Gonzales later denied his original assertion that the dispute was over TSP, claiming that he had misspoken. The controversy over these conflicting statements led Senator Charles Schumer to request appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate if Gonzales had committed perjury.[103]

In testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 15, 2007, former Deputy Attorney General Comey was asked to recall the events of the evening of March 10, 2004, when, (at the behest of President Bush,[104][105]) Gonzales and Bush's then-chief-of-staff Andrew H. Card Jr. sought to bypass Comey's refusal to authorize "a particular classified program,"[106] by appealing to the ailing John Ashcroft in a visit to his hospital bedside, as he recovered from surgery for pancreatitis. According to Comey, he had consulted with AG Ashcroft prior to his hospitalization and, (though Ashcroft had previously signed off on the program many times in previous years,[citation needed]) the two of them came to agree that there had arisen legitimate concerns, which interfered with the ability of the attorney general's office, "to certify (the program's) legality, which was our obligation for the program to be renewed."[106] More than a week later, Comey continued, Ashcroft had become extremely ill and his wife had forbidden any visitors to his hospital room, so when he and the other officials met at his bedside on March 10, he was very concerned about General Ashcroft's ability to think clearly about the issue at hand.

In walked Mr. Gonzales, carrying an envelope, and Mr. Card. They came over and stood by the bed. They greeted the attorney general very briefly, and then Mr. Gonzales began to discuss why they were there, to seek his approval ... I was very upset. I was angry. I thought I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me.[107]

Later testimony from Gonzales and others confirmed that Ashcroft did not seem disoriented, but in fact seemed lucid enough to describe to Card and Gonzales, in great detail, the basis of the Department's legal arguments, and even to complain about clearance decisions by the President relative to the TSP.

Comey also testified that there was significant dissent among top law enforcement officers over the program, although he did not specifically identify it in the hearing. Moreover, in light of the incident at the hospital, "top Justice Department officials were prepared to resign over it."[107]

Jack Goldsmith, the former head of the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department, corroborates many of the details of Comey's Senate testimony regarding the March 10, 2004, hospital room visit, in a preview of his book "The Terror Presidency", which was to be published in Fall 2007. In the September 9, 2007, issue of The New York Times Magazine Jeffrey Rosen reports on an extended interview he had with Goldsmith, who was also in the hospital room that night.[108]

As he recalled it to me, Goldsmith received a call in the evening from his deputy, Philbin, telling him to go to the George Washington University Hospital immediately, since Gonzales and Card were on the way there. Goldsmith raced to the hospital, double-parked outside and walked into a dark room. Ashcroft lay with a bright light shining on him and tubes and wires coming out of his body.

Suddenly, Gonzales and Card came in the room and announced that they were there in connection with the classified program. "Ashcroft, who looked like he was near death, sort of puffed up his chest," Goldsmith recalls. "All of a sudden, energy and color came into his face, and he said that he didn't appreciate them coming to visit him under those circumstances, that he had concerns about the matter they were asking about and that, in any event, he wasn't the attorney general at the moment; Jim Comey was. He actually gave a two-minute speech, and I was sure at the end of it he was going to die. It was the most amazing scene I've ever witnessed."

After a bit of silence, Goldsmith told me, Gonzales thanked Ashcroft, and he and Card walked out of the room. "At that moment," Goldsmith recalled, "Mrs. Ashcroft, who obviously couldn't believe what she saw happening to her sick husband, looked at Gonzales and Card as they walked out of the room and stuck her tongue out at them. She had no idea what we were discussing, but this sweet-looking woman sticking out her tongue was the ultimate expression of disapproval. It captured the feeling in the room perfectly."

Comey also testified that Ashcroft "expressed himself in very strong terms."[106] Goldsmith testified that Ashcroft spoke at length about the legal issue. "Attorney General Ashcroft ... [gave] a couple of minutes' speech in which he said that he .... shared the Justice department's concerns."[109] Although he was not present for the conversation between Gonzales and Ashcroft, FBI Director Bob Mueller testified, "Ashcroft complained to Judge Gonzales about White House compartmentalization rules preventing Ashcroft from getting the advice he needed."[110] On July 24, 2007, Gonzales testified that he and Card were also concerned about Ashcroft's competency. "Obviously there was concern about General Ashcroft's condition. And we would not have sought nor did we intend to get any approval from General Ashcroft if in fact he wasn't fully competent to make the decision."[111] In response to a question from Senator Hatch, Gonzales continued, "Obviously we were concerned about the condition of General Ashcroft. We obviously knew he had been ill and had surgery. And we never had any intent to ask anything of him if we did not feel that he was competent. When we got there, I will just say that Mr. Ashcroft did most of the talking. We were there maybe five minutes – five to six minutes. Mr. Ashcroft talked about the legal issues in a lucid form, as I've heard him talk about legal issues in the White House.[111] During the July 24 hearing, Gonzales's testimony lasted for almost four hours before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He appeared to contradict the earlier statements made by James Comey regarding the hospital room meeting with John Ashcroft.

Mr. Comey's testimony about the hospital visit was about other intelligence activities—disagreement over other intelligence activities. That's how we'd clarify it.[107]

Senator Chuck Schumer confronted Gonzales over this statement: "That is not what Mr. Comey says; that is not what the people in the room say." Gonzales responded "That's how we clarify it."[107] Nonetheless, the DOJ Inspector General's report concluded that there was nothing false or intentionally misleading in Gonzales's account.[citation needed]

The Inspector General also concluded that the dispute between the White House and the DOJ concerned "Other Intelligence Activities," which, though they had been implemented through the same Presidential Authorization, were not the same as the communications interception activities that the President publicly identified as the Terrorist Surveillance Program.[112]: 36  The DOJ Inspector General agreed with Gonzales noting in his report that the "dispute-which resulted in the visit to Attorney General Ashcroft's hospital room by Gonzales and Card and brought several senior DOJ and FBI officials to the brink of resignations – concerned certain of the Other Intelligence Activities that were different from the communication interception activities that the President later publicly acknowledged as the Terrorist Surveillance Program, but that had been implemented through the same Presidential Authorization.[112] As the IG report confirms, the dispute involved Other Intelligence Activities, it was not about TSP.[112]

Through his testimony before Congress on issues ranging from the Patriot Act to U.S. Attorney firings, he commonly admitted ignorance.[113] The response to Gonzales's testimony by those Senators serving on both the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees was one of disbelief. Russ Feingold, who is a member of both the Judiciary and Intelligence committees, said, "I believe your testimony is misleading at best," which Sheldon Whitehouse—also a member of both committees—concurred with, saying, "I have exactly the same perception." Chuck Schumer said Gonzales was "not being straightforward" with the committee. Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy said, "I just don't trust you," and urged Gonzales to carefully review his testimony. The ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, said to Gonzales, "Your credibility has been breached to the point of being actionable." Leahy and Specter's comments were interpreted as warnings that Gonzales might have been perjuring himself. After the meeting, Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller said Gonzales was being "untruthful." Rockefeller's sentiments were echoed by Jane Harman, a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee, who accused Gonzales of "selectively declassifying information to defend his own conduct."[114]

On July 26, 2007, the Associated Press obtained a four-page memorandum from the office of former Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte dated May 17, 2006, which appeared to contradict Gonzales's testimony the previous day regarding the subject of a March 10, 2004, emergency Congressional briefing that preceded his hospital room meeting with former attorney general John Ashcroft, James B. Comey and former White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr.[115] There was no contradiction, however, as the July 1, 2009, IG report confirms.[112] Shortly after the September 11 attacks, the President authorized a number of intelligence activities reported by the IG on the President's Surveillance Program (PSP). One set of activities were TSP, but the dispute was about certain of the Other Intelligence Activities. The IG report is clear on p. 37 that the TSP "was not the subject of the hospital room confrontation or the threatened resignations." P. 36 of the Inspector General report goes on to say that the White House had a major disagreement related to PSP.[112]: 36  The dispute that resulted in the visit to Attorney General Ashcroft's hospital room by Gonzales and Card and brought several senior DOJ and FBI officials to the brink of resignation-concerned certain of the Other Intelligence Activities that were different from the communications interception activities that the President later publicly acknowledged as the TSP, but that had been implemented through the same President Authorizations.[112]: 36 

On that same day, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert S. Mueller III also seemed to dispute the accuracy of Gonzales's Senate Judiciary Committee testimony of the previous day regarding the events of March 10, 2004, in his own sworn testimony on that subject before the House Judiciary Committee.[116]

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) asked Mueller "Did you have an opportunity to talk to General Ashcroft, or did he discuss what was discussed in the meeting with Attorney General Gonzales and the chief of staff?" He replied "I did have a brief discussion with Attorney General Ashcroft." Lee went on to ask "I guess we use [the phrase] TSP [Terrorist Surveillance Program], we use warrantless wiretapping. So would I be comfortable in saying that those were the items that were part of the discussion?" He responded "It was—the discussion was on a national—an NSA program that has been much discussed, yes."[107]

On Thursday, August 16, 2007, the House Judiciary Committee released the heavily redacted notes[110] of FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III regarding the Justice Department and White House deliberations of March 2004, which included the March 10, 2004, hospital-room visit of Gonzales and Andrew H. Card Jr. on John Ashcroft in the presence of then-acting Attorney General James B. Comey. The notes list 26 meetings and phone conversations over three weeks—from March 1 to 23—during a debate that reportedly almost led to mass resignations at the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.[117]

On July 26, 2007, a letter to Solicitor General Paul Clement, Senators Charles Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, Russ Feingold and Sheldon Whitehouse urged that an independent counsel be appointed to investigate whether Gonzales had perjured himself in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the previous day. "We ask that you immediately appoint an independent special counsel from outside the Department of Justice to determine whether Attorney General Gonzales may have misled Congress or perjured himself in testimony before Congress," the letter read in part.[118] According to the July 10, 2009, DOJ Inspector General Unclassified Report on the President's Surveillance Program, Gonzales did not intend to mislead Congress.[112] There was no finding of perjury or other criminal wrongdoing by Gonzales.[112]

On Wednesday, June 27, 2007, the Senate Judiciary Committee issued subpoenas to the United States Department of Justice, the White House, and Vice President Dick Cheney seeking internal documents regarding the program's legality and details of the NSA's cooperative agreements with private telecommunications corporations. In addition to the subpoenas, committee chairman Patrick Leahy sent Gonzales a letter about possible false statements made under oath by U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings before the committee the previous year.[119] In an August 17, 2007, reply letter to Leahy asking for an extension of the August 20 deadline [120] for compliance, White House counsel Fred Fielding argued that the subpoenas called for the production of "extraordinarily sensitive national security information," and he said much of the information—if not all—could be subject to a claim of executive privilege. [121] On August 20, 2007, Fielding wrote to Leahy that the White House needed yet more time to respond to the subpoenas, which prompted Leahy to reply that the Senate might consider a contempt of Congress citation when it returned from its August recess.[122]

On July 27, 2007, both White House Press Secretary Tony Snow and White House spokeswoman Dana Perino defended Gonzales's Senate Judiciary Committee testimony regarding the events of March 10, 2004, saying that it did not contradict the sworn House Judiciary Committee account of FBI director Robert S. Mueller III, because Gonzales had been constrained in what he could say because there was a danger he would divulge classified material.[123] Lee Casey, a former Justice Department lawyer during the Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations, told The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer that it is likely that the apparent discrepancy can be traced to the fact that there are two separate Domestic Surveillance programs. "The program that was leaked in December 2005 is the Comey program. It is not the program that was discussed in the evening when they went to Attorney General Ashcroft's hospital room. That program we know almost nothing about. We can speculate about it. ... The program about which he said there was no dispute is a program that was created after the original program died, when Mr. Comey refused to reauthorize it, in March 2004. Mr. Comey then essentially redid the program to suit his legal concerns. And about that program, there was no dispute. There was clearly a dispute about the earlier form or version of the program. The attorney general has not talked about that program. He refers to it as "other intelligence activities" because it is, in fact, still classified."[107]

On Tuesday, August 28, 2007—one day after Gonzales announced his resignation as Attorney General effective September 17—Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy indicated that it would not affect ongoing investigations by his committee. "I intend to get answers to these questions no matter how long it takes," Leahy said, suggesting that Gonzales could face subpoenas from the committee for testimony or evidence long after leaving the administration. "You'll notice that we've had people subpoenaed even though they've resigned from the White House," Leahy said, referring to Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, and Karl Rove, who resigned in August 2007 as the president's top political aide. "They're still under subpoena. They still face contempt if they don't appear."[124] Gonzales testified voluntarily to Congress and provided interviews to the Inspector General on numerous occasions. He ordered full cooperation by all Department of Justice employees with ongoing investigations.

On Thursday, August 30, 2007, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine disclosed in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee that as part of a previously ongoing investigation, his office is looking into whether Gonzales made statements to Congress that were "intentionally false, misleading, or inappropriate," both about the firing of federal prosecutors and about the terrorist-surveillance program, as committee chairman Patrick Leahy had asked him to do in an August 16, 2007, letter. Fine's letter to Leahy said that his office "has ongoing investigations that relate to most of the subjects addressed by the attorney general's testimony that you identified." Fine said that his office is conducting a particular review "relating to the terrorist-surveillance program, as well as a follow-up review of the use of national security letters," which investigators use to obtain information on e-mail messages, telephone calls and other records from private companies without court approval.[125] Fine concluded his investigation and found that Gonzales did not intend to mislead Congress.[112]

It has been reported that a person involved in the incident of March 10, 2004, hospital room meeting with John Ashcroft has said that much of the confusion and conflicting testimony that occurred about intelligence activities was because certain programs were so classified that they were impossible to speak about clearly.[14] The Department of Justice Inspector General recognized that Gonzales was in the difficult position of testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee about a highly classified program in an open forum.[112]

On July 31, 2007, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell confirmed, in a letter to Senator Specter, that the activities publicly referred to "as the TSP did not exhaust the activities subject to periodic authorization by the President."[126][failed verification] Gonzales was then able to explain publicly, on August 1, 2007, that while TSP "was an extraordinary activity that presented novel and difficult issues and was, as [he understood], the subject of intense deliberations within the Department," the aspect of Mr. Comey's advise [sic] that prompted the Gang of Eight meeting on March 10, 2004, was not about TSP, but was about another or other aspects of the intelligence activities in question, which activities remain classified.[127][128] Comey himself acknowledged that the nature of the disagreement at issue on March 10, 2004, is "a very complicated matter", but he declined to discuss in a public setting.[129] Professor Jack Goldsmith appears to acknowledge that there is a difference between TSP and other classified intelligence activities that prompted the March 10, 2004, Gang of Eight meeting and visit to General Ashcroft's hospital room.[130]

Gonzales v. Carhart edit

As Attorney General, Gonzalez led the Justice Department's defense of the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Act when it was challenged in court and for this reason the legal case bears his name.[131] The Supreme Court issued its opinion in this case on April 18, 2007, ruling in favor of Gonzalez and the Justice Department and upholding the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Act as constitutional.[131]

Speculation on Supreme Court nomination edit

Shortly before the July 1, 2005, retirement announcement of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Sandra Day O'Connor, rumors started circulating that a memo had leaked from the White House stating that upon the retirement of either O'Connor or Chief Justice of the United States William Rehnquist, that Gonzales would be the first nominee for a vacancy on the Court.

Quickly, conservative stalwarts[132] such as National Review magazine[133] and Focus on the Family, among other socially conservative groups, stated they would oppose a Gonzales nomination.[134]

Much of their opposition to Gonzales was based on his perceived support of abortion rights as a result of one vote on a single case before the Texas Supreme Court, In re Jane Doe 5 (43 Tex. Sup. J.910).

In a series of cases before the Texas Supreme Court in 2000, the court was asked to construe for the first time the 1999 Texas parental notification law forbidding a physician from performing an abortion on a pregnant, unaccompanied minor without giving notice to the minor's parents at least 48 hours before the procedure. Texas legislators adopted a policy to create a judicial bypass exception in those cases where (1) the minor is mature and sufficiently well informed to make the decision to have an abortion performed without notification to either of her parents; (2) notification will not be in the best interest of the minor or (3) notification may lead to physical, sexual or emotional abuse of the minor. The court was asked in these cases to discern legislative intent for the first time to these subjective standards, presumably included in the law as a matter of Texas policy and to make the law constitutional under U.S. Supreme Court precedents.[citation needed]

In the seven parental notification decisions rendered by the court, Gonzales voted to grant one bypass. For In re Jane Doe 5 his concurring opinion began with the sentence, "I fully join in the Court's judgment and opinion." He went on, though, to address the three dissenting opinions, primarily one by Nathan L. Hecht alleging that the court majority's members had disregarded legislative intent in favor of their personal ideologies. Gonzales's opinion dealt mostly with how to establish legislative intent. He wrote, "We take the words of the statute as the surest guide to legislative intent. Once we discern the Legislature's intent we must put it into effect, even if we ourselves might have made different policy choices." He added, "[T]o construe the Parental Notification Act so narrowly as to eliminate bypasses, or to create hurdles that simply are not to be found in the words of the statute, would be an unconscionable act of judicial activism," and "While the ramifications of such a law and the results of the Court's decision here may be personally troubling to me as a parent, it is my obligation as a judge to impartially apply the laws of this state without imposing my moral view on the decisions of the Legislature."[citation needed]

Political commentators had suggested that Bush forecast the selection of Gonzales with his comments defending the Attorney General made on July 6, 2005, in Copenhagen, Denmark. Bush stated, "I don't like it when a friend gets criticized. I'm loyal to my friends. All of a sudden this fellow, who is a good public servant and a really fine person, is under fire. And so, do I like it? No, I don't like it, at all." This speculation proved to be incorrect, however, as Bush nominated D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge John Roberts to the Supreme Court.

After the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist on September 3, 2005, creating another vacancy, speculation resumed that President George W. Bush might nominate Gonzales to the Court. This again proved to be incorrect, as Bush decided to nominate Roberts to the chief justice position, and on October 3, 2005, nominated Harriet Miers as associate justice, to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. On October 27, 2005, Miers withdrew her nomination, again renewing speculation about a possible Gonzales nomination. This was laid to rest when Judge Samuel Alito received the nomination and subsequent confirmation.

 
Wikiquote has quotations related to Alberto Gonzales.

On September 11, 2005, U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary chairman Arlen Specter was quoted as saying that it was "a little too soon" after Gonzales's appointment as attorney general for him to be appointed to another position, and that such an appointment would require a new series of confirmation hearings. "He [Gonzales] is attacked a lot," observes Larry Sabato, a political analyst and the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, who adds that the serious political spats "virtually eliminated him from the Supreme Court chase."[135]

Resignation edit

Demand edit

A number of members of both houses of Congress publicly said Gonzales should resign, or be fired by Bush. Calls for his ousting intensified after his testimony on April 19, 2007. But the President gave Gonzales a strong vote of confidence saying, "This is an honest, honorable man, in whom I have confidence." The President said that Gonzales's testimony "increased my confidence" in his ability to lead the Justice Department. Separately, a White House spokeswoman said, "He's staying".[136]

On May 24, 2007, Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) of the Senate Judiciary Committee announced the Democrats' proposed no-confidence resolution to vote on whether "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales no longer holds the confidence of the Senate and the American People." [137] (The vote would have had no legal effect, but was designed to persuade Gonzales to depart or President Bush to seek a new attorney general.) A similar resolution was introduced in the House by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA).[138]

On June 11, 2007, a Senate vote on cloture to end debate on the resolution failed (60 votes are required for cloture). The vote was 53 to 38 with 7 not voting and 1 voting "present" (one senate seat was vacant). Seven Republicans, John E. Sununu, Chuck Hagel, Susan Collins, Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe, Gordon Smith and Norm Coleman voted to end debate; Independent Democrat Joseph Lieberman voted against ending debate. No Democrat voted against the motion. Not voting: Biden (D-DE), Brownback (R-KS), Coburn (R-OK), Dodd (D-CT), Johnson (D-SD), McCain (R-AZ), Obama (D-IL). Stevens (R-AK) voted "present."[139][140]

On July 30, 2007, MSNBC reported that Rep. Jay Inslee announced that he would introduce a bill the following day that would require the House Judiciary Committee to begin an impeachment investigation against Gonzales.[141][142]

Others wrote in support of Gonzales, including the Latino Coalition[143] and the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association.[144]

Partial list of Members of Congress calling for departure

Democrats calling for departure:

Republicans calling for Gonzales to leave:

In addition, several Republicans were critical of Gonzales, without calling for his resignation or firing:

Republican Senators Trent Lott and Orrin Hatch expressed support for Gonzales, although Hatch conceded that Gonzales had "bungled."[181]

Announcement edit

 
Gonzales and his wife Rebecca, with George W. Bush and Laura Bush at the Prairie Chapel Ranch on August 26, 2007, the day that Gonzales's resignation was accepted.

On August 26, 2007, Gonzales submitted his resignation as attorney general with an effective date of September 17, 2007.[84] In a statement on August 27, Gonzales thanked the President for the opportunity to be of service to his country, giving no indication of either the reasons for his resignation or his future plans. Later that day, President Bush praised Gonzales for his service, reciting the numerous positions in Texas government, and later, the government of the United States, to which Bush had appointed Gonzales. Bush attributed the resignation to Gonzales's name having been "dragged through the mud" for "political reasons".[84] Senators Schumer (D-NY), Feinstein (D-CA), and Specter (R-PA) replied that the resignation was entirely attributable to the excessive politicization of the attorney general's office by Gonzales, whose credibility with Congress, they asserted, was nonexistent.

Successor edit

On September 17, 2007, President Bush announced the nomination of ex-Judge Michael B. Mukasey to serve as Gonzales's successor. Bush also announced a revised appointment for acting attorney general: Paul Clement served for 24 hours and returned to his position as solicitor general; the departing assistant attorney general of the Civil Division, Peter Keisler was persuaded to stay on, and was appointed acting attorney general effective September 18, 2007.[182]

Post-resignation edit

Investigations edit

Soon after departure from the DOJ in September 2007, continuing inquiries by Congress and the Justice Department led Gonzales to hire a criminal-defense lawyer George J. Terwilliger III, partner at White & Case, and former deputy attorney general under former president George H. W. Bush. Terwiliger was on the Republican law team involved in Florida presidential election recount battle of 2000.[183]

On October 19, 2007, John McKay, the former U.S. Attorney for Washington's Western District, told The (Spokane) Spokesman-Review that Inspector General Glenn A. Fine may recommend criminal charges against Gonzales.[184] The Inspector General did not recommend criminal charges against Gonzales. To the contrary, the Inspector General found no criminal wrongdoing and no perjury.[112]

On November 15, 2007, The Washington Post reported that supporters of Gonzales had created a trust fund to help pay for his legal expenses, which were mounting as the Justice Department Inspector General's office continued to investigate whether Gonzales committed perjury or improperly tampered with a congressional witness.[185] The Inspector General determined that Gonzales did not commit perjury or improperly tamper with a congressional witness.[112]

In July 2008, the DOJ-OIG issued a report investigating improperly politicized hirings by the attorney general's office.[186]

On September 2, 2008, the Inspector General found that Gonzales had stored classified documents in an insecure fashion, at his home and insufficiently secure safes at work.[187] The Inspector General investigation found no evidence showing that there was any unauthorized disclosure of classified information resulting from his mishandling and storage of the materials in question, and the IG did not make a referral to the National Security Division for violation of a criminal statute.[188]

Some members of Congress criticized Gonzales for selectively declassifying some of this information for political purposes.[187] The Justice Department declined to press criminal charges.[187]

Later career edit

In April 2008, The New York Times reported that Gonzales was having difficulty securing a new job, unusual for a former attorney general.[189] Gonzales had a mediation and consulting practice in Austin, TX and taught at Texas Tech beginning in 2009. In October 2011, Belmont University College of Law announced that Gonzales would fill the Doyle Rogers Distinguished Chair of Law.[190] Gonzalez also joined the Nashville law firm of Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, LLP as Of Counsel.[191]

Gonzales gave an interview to The Wall Street Journal on December 31, 2008, in which he discussed the effect that controversies in his Bush Administration roles had had on his career and public perception.[192][193] He stated:

For some reason, I am portrayed as the one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with. I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror.[193][194]

Since leaving public office he has appeared on a number of television and radio news shows, including The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, to discuss the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court,[195] Larry King Live to discuss the challenges of immigration,[196] and Geraldo at Large to discuss terrorism related issues.[197] He has given numerous radio interviews on shows such as NPR's Tell Me More, covering such topics as Guantanamo Bay and Supreme Court nominations.[198] Additionally, he has written opinion pieces for The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and USA Today, covering issues ranging from immigration to sexual predators.[199][200][201] He stated an intention to write a book about his roles, with the intention of publishing the book "for my sons, so at least they know the story." No publishing company had agreed to promote the book at the time of the interview.[194]

Gonzales was featured in the 2008 Academy Award-winning documentary Taxi to the Dark Side.[202] A biography of Gonzales and his controversial public life, "The President's Counselor: The Rise to Power of Alberto Gonzales," was written in 2006 by presidential biographer and historian Bill Minutaglio.

Texas Tech University edit

In 2009, Texas Tech University System hired Gonzales. He acted as the diversity recruiter for both Texas Tech University and Angelo State University.[203] Additionally, at Texas Tech, he taught a political science "special topics" course dealing with contemporary issues in the executive branch,[204] and a graduate level course to students pursuing a master's degree in public administration. He began the new job on August 1, 2009.[205] After the announcement, more than 40 professors at Texas Tech signed a petition opposing the hiring.[206] Texas Tech Chancellor Kent Hance said Gonzales has generated interest in the University by recruiting outside of Lubbock and through his reputation in the news. "I had a young man come up to me Monday in a restaurant and he said, "I'm in Judge Gonzales's class, and it's the best class I've ever taken. Thank you for providing him to the community." Hance said.[207]

Grand jury indictment edit

In November 2008 Gonzales was indicted by a grand jury in Willacy County in Texas. He was accused of stopping an investigation into abuses at the Willacy Detention Center, a federal detention center. Vice President Dick Cheney and other elected officials were also indicted.[208] A judge dismissed the indictments and chastised the Willacy County district attorney, Juan Angel Gonzales, who brought the case.[209] The district attorney himself had been under indictment for more than a year and a half before the judge dismissed the indictment. The district attorney left office after losing in a Democratic primary in March 2008.[208] All charges were dropped after further investigation.[209]

International investigation edit

On November 14, 2006, invoking universal jurisdiction, legal proceedings were started in Germany against Gonzales for his alleged involvement under the command responsibility of prisoner abuse by writing the controversial legal opinions.[210] On April 27, 2007, Germany's Federal Prosecutor announced she would not proceed with an investigation. In November 2007, the plaintiffs appealed the decision. On April 21, 2009, the Stuttgart Regional Appeals Court dismissed the appeal.

On March 28, 2009, a Spanish court, headed by Baltasar Garzón, the judge who ordered the arrest of former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet, announced it would begin an investigation into whether or not Gonzales, and five other former Bush Justice and Defense officials violated international law by providing the Bush Administration a legal framework and basis for the torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Garzón said that it was "highly probable" the matter would go to court and that arrest warrants would be issued. Also named in the Spanish court's investigation are John Yoo, Douglas Feith, William Haynes II, Jay Bybee, and David Addington.[211][212] In April 2010, on the advice of the Spanish Attorney General Cándido Conde-Pumpido, who believes that an American tribunal should judge the case (or dismiss it) before a Spanish Court ever thinks about becoming involved, prosecutors recommended that Judge Garzon should drop his investigation. As CNN reported, Mr. Conde-Pumpido told reporters that Judge Garzon's plan threatened to turn the court "into a toy in the hands of people who are trying to do a political action".[213]

Main article: The Bush Six

Texas Supreme Court opinions edit

This is a list of opinions in which Alberto Gonzales wrote the majority court opinion, wrote a concurring opinion, or wrote a dissent. Cases in which he joined in an opinion written by another justice are not included. A justice "writes" an opinion if the justice has primary responsibility for the opinion. Justices are assisted by a law clerk who may play an important role in the actual analysis of legal issues and drafting of the opinion. The Texas Supreme Court issued 84 opinions during Gonzales's tenure on the court, according to LexisNexis.

Majority opinions edit

  • Fitzgerald v. Advanced Spine Fixation Systems, 996 S.W.2d 864 (Tex. 1999).
  • Texas Farmers Insurance Company v. Murphy, 996 S.W.2d 873 (Tex. 1999).
  • Mid-Century Insurance Company v. Kidd, 997 S.W.2d 265 (Tex. 1999).
  • General Motors Corporation v. Sanchez, 997 S.W.2d 584 (Tex. 1999).
  • In re Missouri Pac. R.R. Co., 998 S.W.2d 212 (Tex. 1999).
  • Mallios v. Baker, 11 S.W.3d 157 (Tex. 2000).
  • Gulf Insurance Company v. Burns Motors, 22 S.W.3d 417 (Tex. 2000).
  • Southwestern Refining Co. v. Bernal, 22 S.W.3d 425 (Tex. 2000).
  • Golden Eagle Archery, Inc. v. Jackson, 24 S.W.3d 362 (Tex. 2000).
  • City of Fort Worth v. Zimlich, 29 S.W.3d 62 (Tex. 2000).
  • Prudential Insurance Company of America v. Financial Review Services, Inc., 29 S.W.3d 74 (Tex. 2000).
  • Texas Department of Transportation v. Able, 35 S.W.3d 608 (Tex. 2000).
  • Pustejovsky v. Rapid-American Corp., 35 S.W.3d 643 (Tex. 2000).
  • John G. & Marie Stella Kenedy Memorial Foundation v. Dewhurst, 44 Tex. Sup. J. 268 (2000), withdrawn.[214]

Concurring opinions edit

  • In re Dallas Morning News, 10 S.W.3d 298 (Tex. 1999).
  • Osterberg v. Peca, 12 S.W.3d 31 (Tex. 2000).
  • In re Jane Doe 3, 19 S.W.3d 300 (Tex. 2000).
  • In re Doe, 19 S.W.3d 346 (Tex. 2000). (This case is popularly referred to as "In re Jane Doe 5".)
  • Grapevine Excavation, Inc. v. Maryland Lloyds, 35 S.W.3d 1 (Tex. 2000).

Partial dissent, partial concurrence edit

  • Lopez v. Munoz, Hockema, & Reed, 22 S.W.3d 857 (Tex. 2000)

See also edit

References edit

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External links edit

  • Official biography from whitehouse.gov
  • A second biography from ABC News
  • Appearances on C-SPAN
Political offices
Preceded by Secretary of State of Texas
1998–1999 		Succeeded by
Legal offices
Preceded by Associate Justice of the Texas Supreme Court
1999–2001 		Succeeded by
Preceded by White House Counsel
2001–2005 		Succeeded by
Preceded by United States Attorney General
2005–2007 		Succeeded by
U.S. order of precedence (ceremonial)
Preceded byas Former US Cabinet Member Order of precedence of the United States
as Former US Cabinet Member 		Succeeded byas Former US Cabinet Member

December 07, 2023
alberto, gonzales, other, people, named, alberto, gonzález, alberto, gonzález, disambiguation, alberto, gonzales, born, august, 1955, american, lawyer, served, 80th, united, states, attorney, general, from, 2005, 2007, highest, ranking, hispanic, american, exe. For other people named Alberto Gonzalez see Alberto Gonzalez disambiguation Alberto R Gonzales born August 4 1955 is an American lawyer who served as the 80th United States Attorney General from 2005 to 2007 and is the highest ranking Hispanic American in executive government to date 1 He previously served as Secretary of State of Texas as a Texas Supreme Court Justice and as White House Counsel becoming the first Hispanic to hold that office Alberto GonzalesOfficial portrait 200580th United States Attorney GeneralIn office February 3 2005 September 17 2007PresidentGeorge W BushDeputyJames ComeyPaul McNultyCraig S Morford acting Preceded byJohn AshcroftSucceeded byMichael MukaseyWhite House CounselIn office January 20 2001 February 3 2005PresidentGeorge W BushPreceded byBeth NolanSucceeded byHarriet MiersAssociate Justice of the Supreme Court of TexasIn office January 3 1999 January 20 2001Appointed byGeorge W BushPreceded byRaul GonzalezSucceeded byWallace B Jefferson100th Secretary of State of TexasIn office January 1 1998 January 3 1999GovernorGeorge W BushPreceded byTony GarzaSucceeded byElton BomerPersonal detailsBorn 1955 08 04 August 4 1955 age 68 San Antonio Texas U S Political partyRepublicanSpouse s Diana Clemens div 1985 Rebecca TurnerChildren3EducationUnited States Air Force AcademyRice University BA Harvard University JD Military serviceAllegiance United StatesBranch service United States Air ForceYears of service1973 1975Alberto Gonzales s voice source source Alberto Gonzales testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on antiterrorism efforts and Justice Department authorityRecorded July 18 2006Gonzales s tenure as U S Attorney General was marked by controversy regarding warrantless surveillance of U S citizens and the legal authorization of enhanced interrogation techniques later generally acknowledged as constituting torture in the U S government s post 9 11 War on Terror Gonzales had also presided over the firings of several U S Attorneys who had refused back channel White House directives to prosecute political enemies allegedly causing the office of Attorney General to become improperly politicized 2 Following calls for his removal Gonzales resigned from the office in the best interests of the department on August 27 2007 effective September 17 2007 3 4 In 2008 Gonzales began a mediation and consulting practice Additionally he taught a political science course and served as a diversity recruiter at Texas Tech University Gonzales is currently the Dean of Belmont University College of Law in Nashville Tennessee where he teaches National Security Law He was formerly Of Counsel at a Nashville based law firm Waller Lansden Dortch amp Davis LLP where he advised clients on special matters government investigations and regulatory matters Contents 1 Early life and education 2 Early career 3 Recognition 4 Counsel to Governor Bush 5 White House Counsel 5 1 Support for use of torture 5 2 Objectivity 5 3 Executive Order 13233 5 4 Energy Task Force secrecy 6 Attorney general 6 1 Right to writ of habeas corpus in the U S Constitution 6 2 Dismissal of U S attorneys 6 3 NSA domestic eavesdropping program 6 4 Gonzales v Carhart 7 Speculation on Supreme Court nomination 8 Resignation 8 1 Demand 8 2 Announcement 8 3 Successor 9 Post resignation 9 1 Investigations 9 2 Later career 9 3 Texas Tech University 9 4 Grand jury indictment 9 5 International investigation 10 Texas Supreme Court opinions 10 1 Majority opinions 10 2 Concurring opinions 10 3 Partial dissent partial concurrence 11 See also 12 References 13 External linksEarly life and education editGonzales was born to a Catholic family 5 in San Antonio Texas and raised in Humble Texas a town outside of Houston Of Mexican descent he was the second of eight children born to Maria Rodriguez and Pablo M Gonzales 6 non primary source needed His father who died in 1982 was a migrant worker and then a construction worker with a second grade education His mother worked at home raising eight children and had a sixth grade education Gonzales and his family of ten lived in a small two bedroom home built by his father and uncles with no telephone and no hot running water 1 According to Gonzales he is unaware whether immigration documentation exists for three of his grandparents who were born in Mexico and may have entered and resided in the United States illegally 7 An honors student at MacArthur High School in unincorporated Harris County Gonzales enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1973 for a four year term of enlistment He served one year at a remote radar site with 100 other GIs at Fort Yukon Alaska He was then released from active duty to attend the USAFA Prep School after which he received an appointment to the United States Air Force Academy 8 Prior to beginning his third year at the academy which would have caused him to incur a further service obligation he left the Academy and was released from the enlistment contract He transferred to Rice University in Houston where he was a resident of Lovett College 9 He went on to be selected as the Charles Parkhill Scholar of Political Science and was awarded a bachelor s degree with honors in political science in 1979 10 He then earned a Juris Doctor J D degree from Harvard Law School in 1982 Gonzales has been married twice he and his first wife Diane Clemens divorced in 1985 he and his second wife Rebecca Turner Gonzales have three sons Early career editGonzales was an attorney in private practice from 1982 until 1994 with the Houston law firm Vinson and Elkins where he became a partner one of the first Hispanic partners in its history and where he worked primarily with corporate clients In 1994 he was named general counsel to then Texas Governor George W Bush rising to become Secretary of State of Texas in 1997 and subsequently named to the Texas Supreme Court in 1999 both appointments made by Governor Bush Gonzales won his election bid to remain on the court in the Republican Primary in 2000 and was subsequently elected to a full six year term on the State Supreme Court in the November 2000 general election 11 Recognition editGonzales has been active in the community serving as board director or committee member for several non profit organizations between 1985 and 1994 In the legal sphere Gonzales provided pro bono legal services to the Host Committee for the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston acted as a board director for the State Bar of Texas from 1991 to 1994 and was board trustee of the Texas Bar Foundation from 1996 to 1999 He has received numerous professional awards including the Presidential Citation from the State Bar of Texas in 1997 in claimed recognition of his dedication to addressing basic legal needs of the indigent In 1999 he was named Latino Lawyer of the Year by the Hispanic National Bar Association Between 2002 and 2003 Gonzales was recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus of Rice University and received the Harvard Law School Association Award John Ben Shepperd Public Leadership Institute Outstanding Texas Leader Award United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce President s Award League of United Latin American Citizens President s Award the Gary L McPherson Distinguished Alumni Award from the American Council of Young Political Leaders the Chairman s Leadership Award from the Texas Association of Mexican American Chamber of Commerce the Hispanic Scholarship Fund s Truinfador Award the Hispanic Hero Award from the Association for the Advancement of Mexican Americans the Good Neighbor Award from the United States Mexican Chamber of Commerce and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Travis County Texas Republican Party In 2004 Gonzales was given the Exemplary Leader Award by the Houston American Leadership Forum In 2005 he was given the Hector Barreto Sr Award by the Latino Coalition and a President s Award by the U S Hispanic Chamber of Commerce As the son of former migrant workers many believed Gonzales s appointment as Attorney General of the United States to be an example of the American dream He was named Hispanic American of the Year by Hispanic magazine in 2005 and one of the 25 Most Influential Hispanics in America by Time magazine Gonzales was inducted into the Class of 2005 in the American Academy of Achievement 12 Gonzales received the Distinguished Leadership Award in 2006 from Leadership Houston In 2007 as he left government service he was given the Director s Award from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service On May 20 2006 Houston Mayor Bill White proclaimed Alberto R Gonzales Day in Houston in recognition of what was believed to be his contributions to the betterment of the City of Houston Academic institutions have also recognized Gonzales s achievements He received an Honorary Doctor of Laws in 2002 from The Catholic University of America an Honorary Degree in Arts and Letters in 2003 from Miami Dade Community College an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws in 2005 from the University of District of Columbia an Honorary Degree in Associate of Arts in 2005 from the Houston Community College System and an Honorary Alumnus Award in 2007 from Southern Methodist University Counsel to Governor Bush editAs counsel to Governor Bush Gonzales helped advise Bush in connection with jury duty when he was called in a 1996 Travis County drunk driving case The case led to controversy during Bush s 2000 presidential campaign because Bush s answers to the potential juror questionnaire did not disclose Bush s own 1976 misdemeanor drunk driving conviction 13 Gonzales made no formal request for Bush to be excused from jury duty but raised a possible conflict of interest because as the Governor Bush might be called upon to pardon the accused party Gonzales s work in this case has been described as canny lawyering 14 As Governor Bush s counsel in Texas Gonzales also reviewed all clemency requests A 2003 article in The Atlantic Monthly asserted that Gonzales gave insufficient counsel and failed to second guess convictions and failed appeals Gonzales s deputy general counsel from 1995 to 1999 Pete Wassdorf in turn sought to defend Gonzales from what he characterized as an inaccurate and incomplete picture of the clemency process under Bush 15 16 Under Section II Article 4 of the Texas Constitution the Governor cannot grant a pardon or commute a death sentence except with a majority vote recommendation of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles so Bush was constrained in granting clemency even if he had wanted to do so in a case The fact remains that only one death sentence was overturned by Governor Bush and the state of Texas executed more prisoners during Gonzales s term than any other state 17 18 White House Counsel editAs White House counsel and later as attorney general Gonzales served president George W Bush through a period of escalating controversy over the legality of U S policies in the fight against terrorism Gonzales approved the legal framework for the administration s anti terrorism efforts and was a reliable advocate for White House policy He supported positions that enlarged the power of the executive and diminished protections for interrogation subjects These rulings were vocally challenged by many scholars and human rights advocates and were partly overturned by the courts He resigned following sharp criticism of his handling of the firing of nine U S attorneys and subsequent testimony during congressional hearings 19 Support for use of torture edit Main article Torture Memos Gonzalez was a supporter of the Bush administration s policy of torture of detainees internally referred to as Enhanced interrogation techniques In January 2002 Gonzales authored a memo that explored whether the Geneva Convention section III on the Treatment of Prisoners of War GPW applied to Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters captured in Afghanistan and held in detention facilities around the world including Camp X Ray in Guantanamo Bay Cuba The memo made several arguments both for and against providing GPW protection to al Qaeda and Taliban fighters The memo concluded that certain provisions of GPW were outdated and ill suited for dealing with captured Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters The war against terrorism is not the traditional clash between nations adhering to the laws of war that formed the backdrop for GPW The nature of the new war places a high premium on other factors such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians and the need to try terrorists for war crimes such as wantonly killing civilians 20 Gonzales later explained The old ways may not work here That s what the memo was intended to convey to the President I never meant to convey to the President that the basic values in the Geneva Convention were outdated He noted that a British parliamentary committee visiting Guantanamo while horrified by conditions at the base had reached a similar conclusion when it said the Geneva Conventions are failing to provide necessary protection because they lack clarity and are out of date 21 He argued that existing military regulations and instructions from the President were more than adequate to ensure that the principles of the Geneva Convention would be applied He also expressed a concern that undefined language in Common Article III of GPW such as outrages upon personal dignity and inhuman treatment could make officials and military leaders subject to the War Crimes Act of 1996 if actions were deemed to constitute violations of the Act 20 Attorney General John Ashcroft made a similar argument on behalf of the Justice Department by letter to the President dated February 1 2002 writing that a presidential determination against treaty application would provide the highest assurance that no court would subsequently entertain charges that American military officers intelligence officials or law enforcement officials violated Geneva Convention rules relating to field conduct detention conduct or interrogation of detainees The War Crimes Act of 1996 makes violations of parts of the Geneva Convention a crime in the United States 22 Gonzalez oversaw President Bush s Office of Legal Counsel on August 1 2002 at which time the OLC produced the Bybee memo a document that provided the legal framework by which previous interpretations of the Geneva Convention and the United Nations Convention Against Torture were modified to expand Presidential authority to enable so called enhanced interrogation techniques 23 The memo was produced in response to a specific CIA request for clarification of the standards of interrogation under U S law in the specific case of Abu Zabaydah a man believed at the time to be a high level al Qaeda leader In response the Justice Department issued a classified August 1 2002 memo 24 to the CIA from Jay Bybee the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel and an August 1 2002 legal opinion 25 to Gonzales from Jay Bybee defining torture as an act specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering Journalists including Jane Mayer Joby Warrick and Peter Finn and Alex Koppelman have reported the CIA was already using these harsh tactics before the memo authorizing their use was written 23 26 27 28 29 and that it was used to provide after the fact legal support for harsh interrogation techniques 30 A Department of Justice 2009 report regarding prisoner abuses reportedly stated the memos were prepared one month after Abu Zubaydah had already been subjected to the specific techniques authorized in the August 1 2002 memo 31 John Kiriakou stated in July 2009 that Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded in the early summer of 2002 months before the August 1 2002 memo was written 32 33 The memo described ten techniques that the interrogators wanted to use 1 attention grasp 2 walling 3 facial hold 4 facial slap insult slap 5 cramped confinement 6 wall standing 7 stress positions 8 sleep deprivation 9 insects placed in a confinement box and 10 the waterboard 34 Many of the techniques were until then generally considered illegal 23 26 27 35 36 37 Many other techniques developed by the CIA were held to constitute inhumane and degrading treatment and torture under the United Nations Convention against Torture and Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights 35 As reported later many of these interrogation techniques were previously considered illegal under U S and international law and treaties at the time of Abu Zubaydah s capture 35 36 For instance the United States had prosecuted Japanese military officials after World War II and American soldiers after the Vietnam War for waterboarding 36 Since 1930 the United States had defined sleep deprivation as an illegal form of torture 26 Many other techniques developed by the CIA constitute inhuman and degrading treatment and torture under the United Nations Convention against Torture and Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights 35 In May 2005 three months after Gonzales became attorney general Steven G Bradbury of the Office of Legal Counsel issued a pair of classified opinions that for the first time provided Central Intelligence Agency explicit authorization to apply to terror suspects a variety of painful physical and psychological interrogation methods either alone or in combination 38 39 The approved techniques included striking a prisoner exposure to extreme temperatures stress positions walling sleep deprivation for up to 180 hours 7 1 2 days and the simulated drowning procedure known as waterboarding These secret memos superseded a previous unclassified legal opinion that declared torture abhorrent 40 Nevertheless the classified opinions claimed that their reasoning and conclusions were based upon and fully consistent with the previous legal opinion Gonzales reportedly approved the May 10 2005 classified legal memoranda over the policy objections of James B Comey the outgoing deputy attorney general who told colleagues at the Justice Department that they would all be ashamed when the world eventually learned of it 39 Patrick Leahy and John Conyers chairmen of the respective Senate and House Judiciary Committees requested that the Justice Department turn over documents related to the classified 2005 legal opinions to their committees for review 41 In 2009 The Obama administration stated it would abide by the Geneva Convention and described some of the enhanced interrogation techniques established under Attorney General Gonzales s tenure as torture 42 On January 22 2009 President Obama signed an executive order requiring the CIA to use only the 19 interrogation methods outlined in the United States Army Field Manual on interrogations unless the Attorney General with appropriate consultation provides further guidance 43 Bradbury s memoranda were publicly released by the Obama Administration on April 16 2009 44 Objectivity edit Gonzales had a long relationship with former president George W Bush Gonzales served as a general counsel when Bush was the governor of Texas Such relationship made critics question whether he would maintain independence in his administration of the U S Department of Justice 45 46 Gonzales has been called Bush s yes man Even though the advice given by Gonzales was based and supported by other lawyers specifically the Department of Justice charged by statute to provide legal advice to the President critics claim that Gonzales gave only the legal advice Bush wanted Critics questioned Gonzales s ethics and professional conduct 47 48 To his backers Gonzales is a quiet hardworking attorney general notable for his open management style and his commitment to the administration of justice and to the war on terrorism 49 One publication reported Gonzales contends that his friendship with Bush makes him a better advocate for the rule of law within the executive branch My responsibilities is to ensure that the laws are enforced that everyone in the country receives justice under the law independent of my relationship with the White House independent of my relationship with the President of the United States he told National Journal 49 Another report states that Gonzales has a long history of dogged obedience to the President which often has come at the cost of institutional independence and adherence to the rule of law 48 Executive Order 13233 edit Executive Order 13233 drafted by Gonzales and issued by President George W Bush on November 1 2001 shortly after the September 11 2001 attacks attempted to place limitations on the Freedom of Information Act by restricting access to the records of former presidents The order asserted the President s power to delay the release of presidential records longer than the congressionally mandated period of 12 years after the president leaves office Executive Order 13233 revoked President Ronald Reagan s Executive Order 12667 on the same subject and had the effect of delaying the release of Reagan s papers which were due to be made public when Bush took office in 2001 While the policy was being drawn up Gonzales as Counsel to the President issued a series of orders to the U S Archivist to delay the release of Reagan s records 50 This order was the subject of a number of lawsuits and Congressional attempts to overturn it In 2007 a D C district court ordered the Archivist not to obey this order finding it to be arbitrary capricious and contrary to law in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act 51 On January 21 2009 his first day in office President Barack Obama revoked Executive Order 13233 by issuing Executive Order 13489 with wording largely matching Reagan s Executive Order 12667 Energy Task Force secrecy edit Gonzales fought with Congress to keep Vice President Dick Cheney s Energy Task Force documents from being reviewed His arguments were ultimately upheld by courts On July 2 2004 the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Vice President but remanded the case back to the D C Circuit On May 11 2005 the D C Circuit threw out the lawsuit and ruled the Vice President was free to meet in private with energy industry representatives in 2001 while drawing up the President s energy policy 52 Attorney general edit nbsp U S President George W Bush announces his nomination of Gonzales to succeed Ashcroft as the next Attorney General during a press conference in the Roosevelt Room Wednesday November 10 2004 nbsp Justice Sandra Day O Connor presents Gonzales to the audience after swearing him in as Attorney General as Mrs Gonzales looks on Gonzales s name was sometimes floated as a possible nominee to the United States Supreme Court during Bush s first presidential term On November 10 2004 it was announced that he would be nominated to replace United States Attorney General John Ashcroft for Bush s second term Gonzales was regarded as a moderate compared to Ashcroft because he was not seen as opposing abortion or affirmative action Although he has never stated publicly his support for abortion and later as attorney general was the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case Gonzales v Carhart which reinforced the ban on late term abortion that was previously overturned and had stated publicly his opposition to racial quotas some people assumed Gonzales did not oppose abortion or affirmative action According to a Texas Monthly article Gonzales has never said he was pro choice and he has publicly opposed racial quotas 14 The perceived departure from some conservative viewpoints elicited strong opposition to Gonzales that started during his Senate confirmation proceedings at the beginning of President Bush s second term The New York Times quoted anonymous Republican officials as saying that Gonzales s appointment to attorney general was a way to bolster Mr Gonzales s credentials en route to a later Supreme Court appointment 53 Gonzales enjoyed broad bipartisan support in connection with his nomination including the support of former Democratic HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros and Colorado Democratic Senator Ken Salazar One writer noted A senator from Pennsylvania said I have always found him Alberto Gonzales to be completely forthright brutally honest in some cases telling me things I did not want to hear but always forthright always honest sincere serious This is a serious man who takes the responsibilities that have been given to him as a great privilege and a great honor which he holds very carefully and gently in his hands Said another senator this one from Kentucky Judge Gonzales is proof that in America there are no artificial barriers to success A man or woman can climb to any height that his or her talents can take them For Judge Gonzales that is a very high altitude indeed And luckily for his country he is not quite finished climbing yet 1 The nomination was approved on February 3 2005 with the confirming vote largely split along party lines 60 36 54 Republicans and 6 Democrats in favor and 36 Democrats against along with 4 abstentions 3 Democrat and 1 Republican 54 He was sworn in on February 3 2005 Right to writ of habeas corpus in the U S Constitution edit Main article Habeas corpus in the United States Habeas corpus in the 21st Century Gonzales helped draft the January 2002 Presidential Order that authorized the use of military tribunals to try terrorist suspects The order provided the President the power to hold any non citizen who he deemed a terrorist or accessory to a terrorist in military detention and subject to trial before a military commission 55 Subsequently the United States Department of Defense DOD organized military tribunals to judge charges against enemy combatant detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay detention camp In the early years the camp authorities did not allow foreign detainees access to attorneys or materials supporting their charges and the executive branch declared them outside the reach of due process under habeas corpus In Rasul v Bush 2004 the US Supreme Court ruled that they did have rights to habeas corpus and had to be provided access to legal counsel and an opportunity to challenge their detention before an impartial tribunal Further in 2006 the Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v Rumsfeld that trying Guantanamo Bay detainees under the existing Guantanamo military commission known also as Military Tribunal was illegal under US law including the Geneva Conventions 56 The president requested and Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 57 The bill was controversial for continuing to authorize the President to designate certain people as unlawful enemy combatants thus making them subject to military commissions and depriving them of habeas corpus In Boumediene v Bush 2008 the US Supreme Court ruled that foreign detainees held by the United States including those at Guantanamo Bay detention camp did have the right of habeas corpus under the US constitution as the US had sole authority at the Guantanamo Bay base It held that the 2006 Military Commissions Act was an unconstitutional suspension of that right On January 18 2007 Gonzales was invited to speak to the Senate Judiciary Committee where he shocked the committee s ranking member Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania with statements regarding the right of habeas corpus in the United States Constitution 58 An excerpt of the exchange follows Gonzales The fact that the Constitution again there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution There is a prohibition against taking it away But it s never been the case and I m not a Supreme Specter Now wait a minute Wait a minute The Constitution says you can t take it away except in the case of rebellion or invasion Doesn t that mean you have the right of habeas corpus unless there is an invasion or rebellion 59 Gonzales I meant by that comment the Constitution doesn t say Every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right to habeas It doesn t say that It simply says the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended except by 59 60 Senator Specter was referring to 2nd Clause of Section 9 of Article One of the Constitution of the United States which reads The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it This passage has been historically interpreted to mean that the right of habeas corpus is inherently established 61 Gonzales dissents from the consensus view siding with Professor Erwin Chemerinsky who said a though the Constitution prohibits Congress from suspending the writ of habeas corpus except during times of rebellion or invasion this provision was probably meant to keep Congress from suspending the writ and preventing state courts from releasing individuals who were wrongfully imprisoned The constitutional provision does not create a right to habeas corpus rather federal statutes do so 62 Additionally the Constitutional Convention prevented Congress from obstructing the states courts ability to grant the writ but did not try to create a federal constitutional right to habeas corpus 63 After all if the suspension clause itself were an affirmative grant of procedural rights to those held in federal custody there would have been little need for the first Congress to enact as it did habeas corpus protections in the Judiciary Act of 1789 Chemerinsky s argument has been denied by Justice Paul Stevens in a 2001 opinion in an immigration case involving the issue where Stevens touches upon what he believes the far more sensible view The dissent reads into Chief Justice Marshall s opinion in Ex parte Bollman 4 Cranch 75 1807 support for a proposition that the Chief Justice did not endorse either explicitly or implicitly See post at 14 15 He did note that the first congress of the United States acted under the immediate influence of the injunction provided by the Suspension Clause when it gave life and activity to this great constitutional privilege in the Judiciary Act of 1789 and that the writ could not be suspended until after the statute was enacted 4 Cranch at 95 That statement however surely does not imply that Marshall believed the Framers had drafted a Clause that would proscribe a temporary abrogation of the writ while permitting its permanent suspension Indeed Marshall s comment expresses the far more sensible view that the Clause was intended to preclude any possibility that the privilege itself would be lost by either the inaction or the action of Congress See e g ibid noting that the Founders must have felt with peculiar force the obligation imposed by the Suspension Clause 64 Justice Stevens assertion is backed up by sentiments found in the Federalist No 84 which enshrines the right to petition for habeas corpus as fundamental The establishment of the writ of habeas corpus the prohibition of ex post facto laws and of TITLES OF NOBILITY to which we have no corresponding provision in our Constitution are perhaps greater securities to liberty and republicanism than any it contains The creation of crimes after the commission of the fact or in other words the subjecting of men to punishment for things which when they were done were breaches of no law and the practice of arbitrary imprisonments have been in all ages the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny 61 The Constitution presupposes that courts in the United States will have the authority to issue the writ as they historically did at common law See e g Immigration and Naturalization Service v St Cyr 533 U S 289 2001 Felker v Turpin 518 U S 651 666 1996 The Suspension clause of the Constitution provides that t he privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended unless when in case of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it As some commentators have noted the text does not explicitly confer a right to habeas relief but merely sets forth when the Privilege of the Writ may be suspended 65 66 As Robert Parry writes in the Baltimore Chronicle amp Sentinel Applying Gonzales s reasoning one could argue that the First Amendment doesn t explicitly say Americans have the right to worship as they choose speak as they wish or assemble peacefully Ironically Gonzales may be wrong in another way about the lack of specificity in the Constitution s granting of habeas corpus rights Many of the legal features attributed to habeas corpus are delineated in a positive way in the Sixth Amendment 60 Dismissal of U S attorneys edit Main article Dismissal of U S attorneys controversy By law U S Attorneys are appointed for a term of four years and each U S Attorney serves at the pleasure of the President and is subject to removal by the President for any reason or no reason at all barring only illegal and improper reasons 67 When Gonzales became attorney general in 2005 he ordered a performance review of all U S Attorneys 68 On December 7 2006 seven United States attorneys were notified by the United States Department of Justice that they were being dismissed after the George W Bush administration sought their resignation 69 One more Bud Cummins who had been informed of his dismissal in June 2006 announced his resignation on December 15 2006 effective December 20 2006 upon being notified of Tim Griffin s appointment as interim U S attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas 70 71 72 In the subsequent congressional hearings and press reports it was disclosed that additional U S attorneys were controversially dismissed without explanation to the dismissee in 2005 and 2006 and that at least 26 U S attorneys were at various times considered for dismissal Although U S attorneys can be dismissed at the discretion of the president critics claimed that the dismissals were either motivated by desire to install attorneys more loyal to the Republican party loyal Bushies in the words of Kyle Sampson Gonzales s former chief of staff or as retribution for actions or inactions damaging to the Republican party At least six of the eight had received positive performance reviews at the Department of Justice 73 DOJ officials Will Moschella and Monica Goodling both testified under oath that EARS evaluations are office wide reviews they are not reviews of the U S Attorneys themselves 74 75 Gonzales testified under oath that EARS evaluations do not necessarily reflect on the U S Attorney 76 In other words these reviews were not evaluations of the performance of the fired federal prosecutors In a press conference given on March 13 Gonzales suggested that incomplete information was communicated or may have been communicated to the Congress and he accepted full responsibility 77 78 Nonetheless Gonzales avowed that his knowledge of the process to fire and select new US attorneys was limited to how the US attorneys may have been classified as strong performers not as strong performers and weak performers Gonzales also asserted that was all he knew of the process saying that I was not involved in seeing any memos was not involved in any discussions about what was going on That s basically what I knew as the Attorney General 77 Department of Justice records released on March 23 however appeared to contradict some of the Attorney General s assertions indicating that on his Nov 27 schedule he attended an hour long meeting at which aides said he approved a detailed plan for executing the purge 79 Despite insisting that he was not involved in the deliberations leading up to the firing of the attorneys newly released emails also suggest that he had indeed been notified and that he had given ultimate approval In his prepared testimony to Congress on April 19 2007 Gonzales insisted he left the decisions on the firings to his staff ABC News however obtained an internal department email showing that Gonzales urged the ouster of Carol Lam one of the fired attorneys six months before she was asked to leave 80 During actual testimony on April 19 Gonzales stated at least 71 times that he couldn t recall events related to the controversy 81 Those dubious explanations led to diminished Senate support for his continued tenure with even conservative Republicans Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma calling for his resignation 81 His responses frustrated the Democrats on the committee as well as several Republicans One example of such frustration came in an exchange between Sessions and Gonzales regarding a November 2006 meeting Sessions was one of the most conservative members of the Senate and was one of the Bush Administration s staunchest allies At the meeting the attorney firings were purportedly discussed but Gonzales did not remember such discussion As reported by the Washington Post the dialogue went as follows Gonzales Well Senator putting aside the issue of course sometimes people s recollections are different I have no reason to doubt Mr Battle s testimony about the November meeting Sessions Well I guess I m concerned about your recollection really because it s not that long ago It was an important issue And that s troubling to me I ve got to tell you Gonzales Senator I went back and looked at my calendar for that week I traveled to Mexico for the inauguration of the new president We had National Meth Awareness Day We were working on a very complicated issue relating to CFIUS GONZALES And so there were a lot of other weighty issues and matters that I was dealing with that week 82 Another example came when Senator Chuck Schumer of New York who had been the first lawmaker to call for Gonzales s ouster declined to ask his last round of questions Instead a visibly angry Schumer said there was no point to further questioning and reiterated his call for Gonzales to resign By Schumer s count Gonzales had stated over a hundred times that he didn t know or couldn t recall important details concerning the firings and also didn t seem to know about the workings of his own department Gonzales responded that the onus was on the committee to prove whether anything improper occurred Schumer replied that Gonzales faced a higher standard and that under this standard he had to give a full complete and convincing explanation for why the eight attorneys were fired 83 Both Democrats and Republicans were critical of Gonzales s testimony to congress which was widely regarded as exhibiting greater loyalty to president Bush than to the truth 19 With increasing numbers of senators calling for him to go Gonzales resigned as attorney general effective September 17 2007 84 The Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility commenced an investigation into the removal of nine U S Attorneys and issued a report in September 2008 85 The report cited serious issues of accountability removing a few of the U S Attorneys but there was no finding that the nine U S Attorneys were removed for illegal or improper reasons To the contrary the report concluded that Margaret Chiara and Kevin Ryan were removed appropriately for management issues Paul Charlton was removed for his action relating to a death penalty case and unilateral implementation of an interrogation policy The report found Carol Lam was removed because of the Justice Department s concerns about the low number of gun and immigration prosecutions in her district The report concluded John McKay was asked to leave because of his disagreement with the Deputy Attorney General over an information sharing program 85 The report could not cite to a reason Dan Bogden was asked to leave but there was no finding that anything illegal or improper occurred with his removal The report concluded Bud Cummins was asked to leave to make room for another political appointee that he himself conceded under oath was qualified to serve as a U S Attorney These findings were consistent with testimony given by Gonzales Politics was clearly involved 85 The report also concluded Todd Graves was removed to settle a political dispute in Missouri which was motivated by politics 85 The report found that it could not conclude that David Iglesias was removed for an improper reason Because the IG had no authority to investigate Congress or the White House the IG asked Attorney General Mukasey to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Iglesias removal 85 This special prosecutor found no wrongdoing in the removal of Iglesias The DOJ IG found no criminal wrongdoing in the records 85 As the Wall Street Journal reported the Justice Department informed Congress on Wednesday that a special investigator in the case found no evidence of wrongdoing the investigator s final word is that no Administration official gave false statements to Congress or to the DOJ Inspector General which carried out their own investigation 86 In particular the report found no evidence that Gonzales made false or misleading statements to Congress thus clearing him of accusations of perjury 85 87 The IG report determined that some statements made by Gonzales at a March 13 2007 press conference about his involvement were inaccurate The report did not conclude that Gonzales deliberately provided false information 85 347 He acknowledged from the outset his misstatements accepted responsibility and attempted to set the record straight well before congressional testimony on April 19 2007 Gonzales testified 18 months before the IG reports that statements he made at the March 13 2007 press conference were misstatements and were overboard 76 Further in his written statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee presented April 19 2007 Gonzales wrote I misspoke at a press conference on March 13th when I said that I was not involved in any discussions about what was going on That statement was too broad At that same press conference I made clear that I was aware of the process I said I knew my Chief of Staff was involved in the process of determining who were the weak performers where were the districts around the country where we could do better for the people in that district and that s what I knew Of course I knew about the process because of at a minimum these discussions with Mr Sampson Thus my statement about discussions was imprecise and overboard but it certainly was not in any way an attempt to mislead the American people In August 2009 White House documents released showed that Rove raised concerns directly with Gonzales and that Domenici or an intermediary may have contacted the Justice Department as early as 2005 to complain 88 In contrast Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2007 I don t recall Senator Domenici ever requesting that Mr Iglesias be removed 88 In July 2010 Department of Justice prosecutors closed the two year investigation without filing charges after determining that the firings were not criminal saying Evidence did not demonstrate that any prosecutable criminal offense was committed with regard to the removal of David Iglesias The investigative team also determined that the evidence did not warrant expanding the scope of the investigation beyond the removal of Iglesias 89 NSA domestic eavesdropping program edit Main article NSA warrantless surveillance controversy Gonzales was an early advocate of the controversial USA PATRIOT Act which was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush on October 26 2001 During Gonzales s tenure the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were accused of improperly and perhaps illegally using the USA PATRIOT Act to uncover personal information about U S citizens 90 In a December 2005 article 91 92 in The New York Times it was revealed that the National Security Agency NSA was eavesdropping on U S citizens without warrants in cases where i NSA intelligence agents had reason to believe at least one party to the call was a member of al Qaeda or a group affiliated with al Qaeda and ii the call was international 93 The New York Times acknowledged that the activities had been classified and that it had disclosed the activities over the Administration s objections As such Attorney General Gonzales threatened the Times with prosecution under the Espionage Act of 1917 94 since knowing publication of classified information is a federal crime Gonzales raised the possibility that The New York Times journalists could be prosecuted for publishing classified information based on the outcome of the criminal investigation underway into leaks to the Times of data about the National Security Agency s surveillance of terrorist related calls between the United States and abroad He said I understand very much the role that the press plays in our society the protection under the First Amendment we want to protect and respect As for the Times he said As we do in every case it s a case by case evaluation about what the evidence shows us our interpretation of the law We have an obligation to enforce the law and to prosecute those who engage in criminal activity 94 The publication led to an investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility OPR over the role of Department of Justice DOJ lawyers in giving legal advice to support various intelligence collection activities OPR is responsible for investigating allegations of professional misconduct by DOJ attorneys The objective of OPR is to ensure that DOJ attorneys perform their duties in accordance with the highest professional standards The Bush Administration and Attorney General Gonzales believed that OPR did not have the authority to investigate Gonzales s role as White House Counsel in connection with certain intelligence activities authorized by the President In response to suggestions that Gonzales blocked the investigation or that the President blocked the investigation to protect Gonzales Assistant Attorney General Richard Hertling informed Chairman John Conyers on March 22 2007 that the President made the decision not to grant the requested security clearances to OPR staff Judge Gonzales was not told he was the subject or target of the OPR investigation nor did he believe himself to be Judge Gonzales did not ask the President to shut down or otherwise impede the OPR investigation Judge Gonzales recommended to the President that OPR be granted security clearance 95 In a letter to the Senate dated August 1 2007 Gonzales disclosed that shortly after the September 11 attacks the President authorized the NSA under a single Presidential Authorization to engage in a number of intelligence activities which would later be collectively described as the President s Surveillance Program PSP by the DOJ Inspector General Glenn A Fine 85 Some of these authorized activities were described as the Terrorist Surveillance Program TSP by President Bush in an address to the nation on December 16 2005 As the August 1 letter indicates the dispute between the President and James Comey that led to the hospital visit was not over TSP it concerned other classified intelligence activities that are part of PSP and have not been disclosed He defended his authorization of the program asserting if you are talking with al Qaeda we want to know why citation needed In his letter Gonzales wrote the Senate Judiciary Committee that he defined TSP as the program the President publicly confirmed a program that targets communications where one party is outside the United States and as to which the government had reason to believe at least one party to the communication is a member of al Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist organization 96 Indeed prior to the 2007 letter Gonzales provided the same definition of TSP in several public appearances 97 98 99 100 leading up to a hearing in Congress on February 6 2006 101 In March 2004 the TSP operations code named Stellar Wind 102 became the focal point for a dispute between the White House and then acting Attorney General James B Comey resulting in a dramatic late night meeting between Gonzales Comey the bedridden AG John Ashcroft and other DOJ officials in a George Washington University Hospital room According to initial statements by Gonzales the disagreement was not over TSP rather he claimed it concerned other classified intelligence activities that fell under the PSP which had not been disclosed Comey contended that the incident which had culminated in a heated phone conversation following the hospital visit had indeed been over the activities comprising the TSP Through a spokesperson Gonzales later denied his original assertion that the dispute was over TSP claiming that he had misspoken The controversy over these conflicting statements led Senator Charles Schumer to request appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate if Gonzales had committed perjury 103 In testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 15 2007 former Deputy Attorney General Comey was asked to recall the events of the evening of March 10 2004 when at the behest of President Bush 104 105 Gonzales and Bush s then chief of staff Andrew H Card Jr sought to bypass Comey s refusal to authorize a particular classified program 106 by appealing to the ailing John Ashcroft in a visit to his hospital bedside as he recovered from surgery for pancreatitis According to Comey he had consulted with AG Ashcroft prior to his hospitalization and though Ashcroft had previously signed off on the program many times in previous years citation needed the two of them came to agree that there had arisen legitimate concerns which interfered with the ability of the attorney general s office to certify the program s legality which was our obligation for the program to be renewed 106 More than a week later Comey continued Ashcroft had become extremely ill and his wife had forbidden any visitors to his hospital room so when he and the other officials met at his bedside on March 10 he was very concerned about General Ashcroft s ability to think clearly about the issue at hand In walked Mr Gonzales carrying an envelope and Mr Card They came over and stood by the bed They greeted the attorney general very briefly and then Mr Gonzales began to discuss why they were there to seek his approval I was very upset I was angry I thought I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me 107 Later testimony from Gonzales and others confirmed that Ashcroft did not seem disoriented but in fact seemed lucid enough to describe to Card and Gonzales in great detail the basis of the Department s legal arguments and even to complain about clearance decisions by the President relative to the TSP Comey also testified that there was significant dissent among top law enforcement officers over the program although he did not specifically identify it in the hearing Moreover in light of the incident at the hospital top Justice Department officials were prepared to resign over it 107 Jack Goldsmith the former head of the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department corroborates many of the details of Comey s Senate testimony regarding the March 10 2004 hospital room visit in a preview of his book The Terror Presidency which was to be published in Fall 2007 In the September 9 2007 issue of The New York Times Magazine Jeffrey Rosen reports on an extended interview he had with Goldsmith who was also in the hospital room that night 108 As he recalled it to me Goldsmith received a call in the evening from his deputy Philbin telling him to go to the George Washington University Hospital immediately since Gonzales and Card were on the way there Goldsmith raced to the hospital double parked outside and walked into a dark room Ashcroft lay with a bright light shining on him and tubes and wires coming out of his body Suddenly Gonzales and Card came in the room and announced that they were there in connection with the classified program Ashcroft who looked like he was near death sort of puffed up his chest Goldsmith recalls All of a sudden energy and color came into his face and he said that he didn t appreciate them coming to visit him under those circumstances that he had concerns about the matter they were asking about and that in any event he wasn t the attorney general at the moment Jim Comey was He actually gave a two minute speech and I was sure at the end of it he was going to die It was the most amazing scene I ve ever witnessed After a bit of silence Goldsmith told me Gonzales thanked Ashcroft and he and Card walked out of the room At that moment Goldsmith recalled Mrs Ashcroft who obviously couldn t believe what she saw happening to her sick husband looked at Gonzales and Card as they walked out of the room and stuck her tongue out at them She had no idea what we were discussing but this sweet looking woman sticking out her tongue was the ultimate expression of disapproval It captured the feeling in the room perfectly Comey also testified that Ashcroft expressed himself in very strong terms 106 Goldsmith testified that Ashcroft spoke at length about the legal issue Attorney General Ashcroft gave a couple of minutes speech in which he said that he shared the Justice department s concerns 109 Although he was not present for the conversation between Gonzales and Ashcroft FBI Director Bob Mueller testified Ashcroft complained to Judge Gonzales about White House compartmentalization rules preventing Ashcroft from getting the advice he needed 110 On July 24 2007 Gonzales testified that he and Card were also concerned about Ashcroft s competency Obviously there was concern about General Ashcroft s condition And we would not have sought nor did we intend to get any approval from General Ashcroft if in fact he wasn t fully competent to make the decision 111 In response to a question from Senator Hatch Gonzales continued Obviously we were concerned about the condition of General Ashcroft We obviously knew he had been ill and had surgery And we never had any intent to ask anything of him if we did not feel that he was competent When we got there I will just say that Mr Ashcroft did most of the talking We were there maybe five minutes five to six minutes Mr Ashcroft talked about the legal issues in a lucid form as I ve heard him talk about legal issues in the White House 111 During the July 24 hearing Gonzales s testimony lasted for almost four hours before the Senate Judiciary Committee He appeared to contradict the earlier statements made by James Comey regarding the hospital room meeting with John Ashcroft Mr Comey s testimony about the hospital visit was about other intelligence activities disagreement over other intelligence activities That s how we d clarify it 107 Senator Chuck Schumer confronted Gonzales over this statement That is not what Mr Comey says that is not what the people in the room say Gonzales responded That s how we clarify it 107 Nonetheless the DOJ Inspector General s report concluded that there was nothing false or intentionally misleading in Gonzales s account citation needed The Inspector General also concluded that the dispute between the White House and the DOJ concerned Other Intelligence Activities which though they had been implemented through the same Presidential Authorization were not the same as the communications interception activities that the President publicly identified as the Terrorist Surveillance Program 112 36 The DOJ Inspector General agreed with Gonzales noting in his report that the dispute which resulted in the visit to Attorney General Ashcroft s hospital room by Gonzales and Card and brought several senior DOJ and FBI officials to the brink of resignations concerned certain of the Other Intelligence Activities that were different from the communication interception activities that the President later publicly acknowledged as the Terrorist Surveillance Program but that had been implemented through the same Presidential Authorization 112 As the IG report confirms the dispute involved Other Intelligence Activities it was not about TSP 112 Through his testimony before Congress on issues ranging from the Patriot Act to U S Attorney firings he commonly admitted ignorance 113 The response to Gonzales s testimony by those Senators serving on both the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees was one of disbelief Russ Feingold who is a member of both the Judiciary and Intelligence committees said I believe your testimony is misleading at best which Sheldon Whitehouse also a member of both committees concurred with saying I have exactly the same perception Chuck Schumer said Gonzales was not being straightforward with the committee Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy said I just don t trust you and urged Gonzales to carefully review his testimony The ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee Arlen Specter said to Gonzales Your credibility has been breached to the point of being actionable Leahy and Specter s comments were interpreted as warnings that Gonzales might have been perjuring himself After the meeting Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller said Gonzales was being untruthful Rockefeller s sentiments were echoed by Jane Harman a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee who accused Gonzales of selectively declassifying information to defend his own conduct 114 On July 26 2007 the Associated Press obtained a four page memorandum from the office of former Director of National Intelligence John D Negroponte dated May 17 2006 which appeared to contradict Gonzales s testimony the previous day regarding the subject of a March 10 2004 emergency Congressional briefing that preceded his hospital room meeting with former attorney general John Ashcroft James B Comey and former White House Chief of Staff Andrew H Card Jr 115 There was no contradiction however as the July 1 2009 IG report confirms 112 Shortly after the September 11 attacks the President authorized a number of intelligence activities reported by the IG on the President s Surveillance Program PSP One set of activities were TSP but the dispute was about certain of the Other Intelligence Activities The IG report is clear on p 37 that the TSP was not the subject of the hospital room confrontation or the threatened resignations P 36 of the Inspector General report goes on to say that the White House had a major disagreement related to PSP 112 36 The dispute that resulted in the visit to Attorney General Ashcroft s hospital room by Gonzales and Card and brought several senior DOJ and FBI officials to the brink of resignation concerned certain of the Other Intelligence Activities that were different from the communications interception activities that the President later publicly acknowledged as the TSP but that had been implemented through the same President Authorizations 112 36 On that same day Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Director Robert S Mueller III also seemed to dispute the accuracy of Gonzales s Senate Judiciary Committee testimony of the previous day regarding the events of March 10 2004 in his own sworn testimony on that subject before the House Judiciary Committee 116 Rep Sheila Jackson Lee D TX asked Mueller Did you have an opportunity to talk to General Ashcroft or did he discuss what was discussed in the meeting with Attorney General Gonzales and the chief of staff He replied I did have a brief discussion with Attorney General Ashcroft Lee went on to ask I guess we use the phrase TSP Terrorist Surveillance Program we use warrantless wiretapping So would I be comfortable in saying that those were the items that were part of the discussion He responded It was the discussion was on a national an NSA program that has been much discussed yes 107 On Thursday August 16 2007 the House Judiciary Committee released the heavily redacted notes 110 of FBI Director Robert S Mueller III regarding the Justice Department and White House deliberations of March 2004 which included the March 10 2004 hospital room visit of Gonzales and Andrew H Card Jr on John Ashcroft in the presence of then acting Attorney General James B Comey The notes list 26 meetings and phone conversations over three weeks from March 1 to 23 during a debate that reportedly almost led to mass resignations at the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation 117 On July 26 2007 a letter to Solicitor General Paul Clement Senators Charles Schumer Dianne Feinstein Russ Feingold and Sheldon Whitehouse urged that an independent counsel be appointed to investigate whether Gonzales had perjured himself in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the previous day We ask that you immediately appoint an independent special counsel from outside the Department of Justice to determine whether Attorney General Gonzales may have misled Congress or perjured himself in testimony before Congress the letter read in part 118 According to the July 10 2009 DOJ Inspector General Unclassified Report on the President s Surveillance Program Gonzales did not intend to mislead Congress 112 There was no finding of perjury or other criminal wrongdoing by Gonzales 112 On Wednesday June 27 2007 the Senate Judiciary Committee issued subpoenas to the United States Department of Justice the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney seeking internal documents regarding the program s legality and details of the NSA s cooperative agreements with private telecommunications corporations In addition to the subpoenas committee chairman Patrick Leahy sent Gonzales a letter about possible false statements made under oath by U S Court of Appeals Judge Brett M Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings before the committee the previous year 119 In an August 17 2007 reply letter to Leahy asking for an extension of the August 20 deadline 120 for compliance White House counsel Fred Fielding argued that the subpoenas called for the production of extraordinarily sensitive national security information and he said much of the information if not all could be subject to a claim of executive privilege 121 On August 20 2007 Fielding wrote to Leahy that the White House needed yet more time to respond to the subpoenas which prompted Leahy to reply that the Senate might consider a contempt of Congress citation when it returned from its August recess 122 On July 27 2007 both White House Press Secretary Tony Snow and White House spokeswoman Dana Perino defended Gonzales s Senate Judiciary Committee testimony regarding the events of March 10 2004 saying that it did not contradict the sworn House Judiciary Committee account of FBI director Robert S Mueller III because Gonzales had been constrained in what he could say because there was a danger he would divulge classified material 123 Lee Casey a former Justice Department lawyer during the Ronald Reagan and George H W Bush administrations told The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer that it is likely that the apparent discrepancy can be traced to the fact that there are two separate Domestic Surveillance programs The program that was leaked in December 2005 is the Comey program It is not the program that was discussed in the evening when they went to Attorney General Ashcroft s hospital room That program we know almost nothing about We can speculate about it The program about which he said there was no dispute is a program that was created after the original program died when Mr Comey refused to reauthorize it in March 2004 Mr Comey then essentially redid the program to suit his legal concerns And about that program there was no dispute There was clearly a dispute about the earlier form or version of the program The attorney general has not talked about that program He refers to it as other intelligence activities because it is in fact still classified 107 On Tuesday August 28 2007 one day after Gonzales announced his resignation as Attorney General effective September 17 Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy indicated that it would not affect ongoing investigations by his committee I intend to get answers to these questions no matter how long it takes Leahy said suggesting that Gonzales could face subpoenas from the committee for testimony or evidence long after leaving the administration You ll notice that we ve had people subpoenaed even though they ve resigned from the White House Leahy said referring to Harriet E Miers the former White House counsel and Karl Rove who resigned in August 2007 as the president s top political aide They re still under subpoena They still face contempt if they don t appear 124 Gonzales testified voluntarily to Congress and provided interviews to the Inspector General on numerous occasions He ordered full cooperation by all Department of Justice employees with ongoing investigations On Thursday August 30 2007 Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A Fine disclosed in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee that as part of a previously ongoing investigation his office is looking into whether Gonzales made statements to Congress that were intentionally false misleading or inappropriate both about the firing of federal prosecutors and about the terrorist surveillance program as committee chairman Patrick Leahy had asked him to do in an August 16 2007 letter Fine s letter to Leahy said that his office has ongoing investigations that relate to most of the subjects addressed by the attorney general s testimony that you identified Fine said that his office is conducting a particular review relating to the terrorist surveillance program as well as a follow up review of the use of national security letters which investigators use to obtain information on e mail messages telephone calls and other records from private companies without court approval 125 Fine concluded his investigation and found that Gonzales did not intend to mislead Congress 112 It has been reported that a person involved in the incident of March 10 2004 hospital room meeting with John Ashcroft has said that much of the confusion and conflicting testimony that occurred about intelligence activities was because certain programs were so classified that they were impossible to speak about clearly 14 The Department of Justice Inspector General recognized that Gonzales was in the difficult position of testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee about a highly classified program in an open forum 112 On July 31 2007 Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell confirmed in a letter to Senator Specter that the activities publicly referred to as the TSP did not exhaust the activities subject to periodic authorization by the President 126 failed verification Gonzales was then able to explain publicly on August 1 2007 that while TSP was an extraordinary activity that presented novel and difficult issues and was as he understood the subject of intense deliberations within the Department the aspect of Mr Comey s advise sic that prompted the Gang of Eight meeting on March 10 2004 was not about TSP but was about another or other aspects of the intelligence activities in question which activities remain classified 127 128 Comey himself acknowledged that the nature of the disagreement at issue on March 10 2004 is a very complicated matter but he declined to discuss in a public setting 129 Professor Jack Goldsmith appears to acknowledge that there is a difference between TSP and other classified intelligence activities that prompted the March 10 2004 Gang of Eight meeting and visit to General Ashcroft s hospital room 130 Gonzales v Carhart edit As Attorney General Gonzalez led the Justice Department s defense of the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Act when it was challenged in court and for this reason the legal case bears his name 131 The Supreme Court issued its opinion in this case on April 18 2007 ruling in favor of Gonzalez and the Justice Department and upholding the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Act as constitutional 131 Speculation on Supreme Court nomination editShortly before the July 1 2005 retirement announcement of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Sandra Day O Connor rumors started circulating that a memo had leaked from the White House stating that upon the retirement of either O Connor or Chief Justice of the United States William Rehnquist that Gonzales would be the first nominee for a vacancy on the Court Quickly conservative stalwarts 132 such as National Review magazine 133 and Focus on the Family among other socially conservative groups stated they would oppose a Gonzales nomination 134 Much of their opposition to Gonzales was based on his perceived support of abortion rights as a result of one vote on a single case before the Texas Supreme Court In re Jane Doe 5 43 Tex Sup J 910 In a series of cases before the Texas Supreme Court in 2000 the court was asked to construe for the first time the 1999 Texas parental notification law forbidding a physician from performing an abortion on a pregnant unaccompanied minor without giving notice to the minor s parents at least 48 hours before the procedure Texas legislators adopted a policy to create a judicial bypass exception in those cases where 1 the minor is mature and sufficiently well informed to make the decision to have an abortion performed without notification to either of her parents 2 notification will not be in the best interest of the minor or 3 notification may lead to physical sexual or emotional abuse of the minor The court was asked in these cases to discern legislative intent for the first time to these subjective standards presumably included in the law as a matter of Texas policy and to make the law constitutional under U S Supreme Court precedents citation needed In the seven parental notification decisions rendered by the court Gonzales voted to grant one bypass For In re Jane Doe 5 his concurring opinion began with the sentence I fully join in the Court s judgment and opinion He went on though to address the three dissenting opinions primarily one by Nathan L Hecht alleging that the court majority s members had disregarded legislative intent in favor of their personal ideologies Gonzales s opinion dealt mostly with how to establish legislative intent He wrote We take the words of the statute as the surest guide to legislative intent Once we discern the Legislature s intent we must put it into effect even if we ourselves might have made different policy choices He added T o construe the Parental Notification Act so narrowly as to eliminate bypasses or to create hurdles that simply are not to be found in the words of the statute would be an unconscionable act of judicial activism and While the ramifications of such a law and the results of the Court s decision here may be personally troubling to me as a parent it is my obligation as a judge to impartially apply the laws of this state without imposing my moral view on the decisions of the Legislature citation needed Political commentators had suggested that Bush forecast the selection of Gonzales with his comments defending the Attorney General made on July 6 2005 in Copenhagen Denmark Bush stated I don t like it when a friend gets criticized I m loyal to my friends All of a sudden this fellow who is a good public servant and a really fine person is under fire And so do I like it No I don t like it at all This speculation proved to be incorrect however as Bush nominated D C Circuit Court of Appeals Judge John Roberts to the Supreme Court After the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist on September 3 2005 creating another vacancy speculation resumed that President George W Bush might nominate Gonzales to the Court This again proved to be incorrect as Bush decided to nominate Roberts to the chief justice position and on October 3 2005 nominated Harriet Miers as associate justice to replace Justice Sandra Day O Connor On October 27 2005 Miers withdrew her nomination again renewing speculation about a possible Gonzales nomination This was laid to rest when Judge Samuel Alito received the nomination and subsequent confirmation nbsp Wikiquote has quotations related to Alberto Gonzales On September 11 2005 U S Senate Committee on the Judiciary chairman Arlen Specter was quoted as saying that it was a little too soon after Gonzales s appointment as attorney general for him to be appointed to another position and that such an appointment would require a new series of confirmation hearings He Gonzales is attacked a lot observes Larry Sabato a political analyst and the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia who adds that the serious political spats virtually eliminated him from the Supreme Court chase 135 Resignation editDemand edit A number of members of both houses of Congress publicly said Gonzales should resign or be fired by Bush Calls for his ousting intensified after his testimony on April 19 2007 But the President gave Gonzales a strong vote of confidence saying This is an honest honorable man in whom I have confidence The President said that Gonzales s testimony increased my confidence in his ability to lead the Justice Department Separately a White House spokeswoman said He s staying 136 On May 24 2007 Senators Charles Schumer D NY Dianne Feinstein D CA and Sheldon Whitehouse D RI of the Senate Judiciary Committee announced the Democrats proposed no confidence resolution to vote on whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales no longer holds the confidence of the Senate and the American People 137 The vote would have had no legal effect but was designed to persuade Gonzales to depart or President Bush to seek a new attorney general A similar resolution was introduced in the House by Rep Adam Schiff D CA 138 On June 11 2007 a Senate vote on cloture to end debate on the resolution failed 60 votes are required for cloture The vote was 53 to 38 with 7 not voting and 1 voting present one senate seat was vacant Seven Republicans John E Sununu Chuck Hagel Susan Collins Arlen Specter Olympia Snowe Gordon Smith and Norm Coleman voted to end debate Independent Democrat Joseph Lieberman voted against ending debate No Democrat voted against the motion Not voting Biden D DE Brownback R KS Coburn R OK Dodd D CT Johnson D SD McCain R AZ Obama D IL Stevens R AK voted present 139 140 On July 30 2007 MSNBC reported that Rep Jay Inslee announced that he would introduce a bill the following day that would require the House Judiciary Committee to begin an impeachment investigation against Gonzales 141 142 Others wrote in support of Gonzales including the Latino Coalition 143 and the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association 144 Partial list of Members of Congress calling for departureDemocrats calling for departure Sen Harry Reid D NV Senate Majority Leader It s foolishness if President Bush hangs on to him 145 Sen Chuck Schumer D NY Vice Chairman of Senate Democratic Conference chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee doesn t accept or doesn t understand that he is no longer just the president s lawyer 146 carrying out the political wishes of the President 147 first member of either chamber to call for ouster Sen Patrick Leahy D VT Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee I don t think he can be effective 148 Sen Joe Biden D DE member of the Senate Judiciary Committee I think we d be better off if he did resign but that s a judgment the president is going to have to make 149 Sen Maria Cantwell D WA perplexed by the attorney general s testimony 150 he has served as the president s lawyer not our nation s 149 Sen Hillary Clinton D NY buck should stop somewhere 151 Sen Chris Dodd D CT egregious lapses in judgment 152 Sen Dianne Feinstein D CA member of the Senate Judiciary Committee I believe he should step down the nation is not well served by this 153 Sen Ted Kennedy D MA member of the Senate Judiciary Committee his resignation is long overdue 154 Sen John Kerry D MA there must be accountability from the top down 155 Sen Blanche Lincoln D AR I believe the Administration and the nation would be better served if Mr Gonzales were replaced 156 Sen Bill Nelson D FL lost his credibility 149 Sen Barack Obama D IL subverted justice to promote a political agenda 157 Sen Mark Pryor D AR when the Attorney General lies to a United States Senator it s time for that Attorney General to go 158 Sen Sheldon Whitehouse D RI member of the Senate Judiciary Committee he had a hard sell to make to me and he didn t make it 159 Sen Ken Salazar D CO I believe it is in the best interest of our Nation for the Department of Justice to get a fresh start with a new Attorney General 149 Rep Nancy Pelosi D CA Speaker of the House of Representatives has lost the trust of the American people 160 Rep Shelley Berkley D NV shredded his credibility 149 Rep Rick Larsen D WA has not been forthcoming 149 Rep Adam Schiff D CA member of the House Judiciary Committee told Gonzales in House testimony that it makes me ill to see what has happened to the Justice Department and that I don t think you re the one to fix it 149 Republicans calling for Gonzales to leave Sen John E Sununu R NH first Republican to call for ouster If I were the president I would fire the attorney general 161 Sen Gordon Smith R OR ouster would be helpful 161 Sen Tom Coburn R OK member of the Senate Judiciary Committee told Gonzales at hearing that the best way to put this behind us is your resignation 162 had earlier described affair as idiocy 163 Sen John McCain R AZ very disappointed in his performance it would be best for Gonzales to quit 164 Sen Jeff Sessions R AL member of Senate Judiciary Committee If he and the President decide that he cannot be an effective leader moving forward then he should resign 165 Sen Norm Coleman R MN deeply concerned 166 Sen Arlen Specter R PA ranking Republican on Senate Judiciary Committee called failure to step down bad for the Justice Department 167 Sen Chuck Hagel R NE lost the moral authority to lead 168 Rep Dana Rohrabacher R CA the president should have an attorney general who is less a personal friend and more professional in his approach 169 Rep Paul Gillmor R OH lightning rod 170 Rep Vern Ehlers R MI he s hurt the President by what he s doing he s damaged himself and the President 171 Rep Jon Porter R NV egregiously mishandled we need to restore confidence 172 Rep Dean Heller R NV it s become a distraction 149 Rep Lee Terry R NE I trusted him before but I can t now 173 Rep Adam Putnam R FL House Republican Conference Chairman 1st top House Republican to call for ouster time for fresh leadership 174 Rep Tom Tancredo R CO a series of leadership failures 175 In addition several Republicans were critical of Gonzales without calling for his resignation or firing Sen John Cornyn R TX member of Senate Judiciary Committee the way this has been handled has been deplorable 176 Sen John Ensign R NV chairman of National Republican Senatorial Committee incompetence they blew it 177 Sen Lindsey Graham R SC member of Senate Judiciary Committee He has said some things that just don t add up 178 Sen Susan Collins R ME I do not think he has served the president well 179 Rep Jim Sensenbrenner R WI member of House Judiciary Committee could die by a thousand cuts 180 Republican Senators Trent Lott and Orrin Hatch expressed support for Gonzales although Hatch conceded that Gonzales had bungled 181 Announcement edit nbsp Gonzales and his wife Rebecca with George W Bush and Laura Bush at the Prairie Chapel Ranch on August 26 2007 the day that Gonzales s resignation was accepted On August 26 2007 Gonzales submitted his resignation as attorney general with an effective date of September 17 2007 84 In a statement on August 27 Gonzales thanked the President for the opportunity to be of service to his country giving no indication of either the reasons for his resignation or his future plans Later that day President Bush praised Gonzales for his service reciting the numerous positions in Texas government and later the government of the United States to which Bush had appointed Gonzales Bush attributed the resignation to Gonzales s name having been dragged through the mud for political reasons 84 Senators Schumer D NY Feinstein D CA and Specter R PA replied that the resignation was entirely attributable to the excessive politicization of the attorney general s office by Gonzales whose credibility with Congress they asserted was nonexistent Successor edit On September 17 2007 President Bush announced the nomination of ex Judge Michael B Mukasey to serve as Gonzales s successor Bush also announced a revised appointment for acting attorney general Paul Clement served for 24 hours and returned to his position as solicitor general the departing assistant attorney general of the Civil Division Peter Keisler was persuaded to stay on and was appointed acting attorney general effective September 18 2007 182 Post resignation editInvestigations edit Soon after departure from the DOJ in September 2007 continuing inquiries by Congress and the Justice Department led Gonzales to hire a criminal defense lawyer George J Terwilliger III partner at White amp Case and former deputy attorney general under former president George H W Bush Terwiliger was on the Republican law team involved in Florida presidential election recount battle of 2000 183 On October 19 2007 John McKay the former U S Attorney for Washington s Western District told The Spokane Spokesman Review that Inspector General Glenn A Fine may recommend criminal charges against Gonzales 184 The Inspector General did not recommend criminal charges against Gonzales To the contrary the Inspector General found no criminal wrongdoing and no perjury 112 On November 15 2007 The Washington Post reported that supporters of Gonzales had created a trust fund to help pay for his legal expenses which were mounting as the Justice Department Inspector General s office continued to investigate whether Gonzales committed perjury or improperly tampered with a congressional witness 185 The Inspector General determined that Gonzales did not commit perjury or improperly tamper with a congressional witness 112 In July 2008 the DOJ OIG issued a report investigating improperly politicized hirings by the attorney general s office 186 On September 2 2008 the Inspector General found that Gonzales had stored classified documents in an insecure fashion at his home and insufficiently secure safes at work 187 The Inspector General investigation found no evidence showing that there was any unauthorized disclosure of classified information resulting from his mishandling and storage of the materials in question and the IG did not make a referral to the National Security Division for violation of a criminal statute 188 Some members of Congress criticized Gonzales for selectively declassifying some of this information for political purposes 187 The Justice Department declined to press criminal charges 187 Later career edit In April 2008 The New York Times reported that Gonzales was having difficulty securing a new job unusual for a former attorney general 189 Gonzales had a mediation and consulting practice in Austin TX and taught at Texas Tech beginning in 2009 In October 2011 Belmont University College of Law announced that Gonzales would fill the Doyle Rogers Distinguished Chair of Law 190 Gonzalez also joined the Nashville law firm of Waller Lansden Dortch amp Davis LLP as Of Counsel 191 Gonzales gave an interview to The Wall Street Journal on December 31 2008 in which he discussed the effect that controversies in his Bush Administration roles had had on his career and public perception 192 193 He stated For some reason I am portrayed as the one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with I consider myself a casualty one of the many casualties of the war on terror 193 194 Since leaving public office he has appeared on a number of television and radio news shows including The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer to discuss the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the U S Supreme Court 195 Larry King Live to discuss the challenges of immigration 196 and Geraldo at Large to discuss terrorism related issues 197 He has given numerous radio interviews on shows such as NPR s Tell Me More covering such topics as Guantanamo Bay and Supreme Court nominations 198 Additionally he has written opinion pieces for The Washington Post Los Angeles Times and USA Today covering issues ranging from immigration to sexual predators 199 200 201 He stated an intention to write a book about his roles with the intention of publishing the book for my sons so at least they know the story No publishing company had agreed to promote the book at the time of the interview 194 Gonzales was featured in the 2008 Academy Award winning documentary Taxi to the Dark Side 202 A biography of Gonzales and his controversial public life The President s Counselor The Rise to Power of Alberto Gonzales was written in 2006 by presidential biographer and historian Bill Minutaglio Texas Tech University edit In 2009 Texas Tech University System hired Gonzales He acted as the diversity recruiter for both Texas Tech University and Angelo State University 203 Additionally at Texas Tech he taught a political science special topics course dealing with contemporary issues in the executive branch 204 and a graduate level course to students pursuing a master s degree in public administration He began the new job on August 1 2009 205 After the announcement more than 40 professors at Texas Tech signed a petition opposing the hiring 206 Texas Tech Chancellor Kent Hance said Gonzales has generated interest in the University by recruiting outside of Lubbock and through his reputation in the news I had a young man come up to me Monday in a restaurant and he said I m in Judge Gonzales s class and it s the best class I ve ever taken Thank you for providing him to the community Hance said 207 Grand jury indictment edit In November 2008 Gonzales was indicted by a grand jury in Willacy County in Texas He was accused of stopping an investigation into abuses at the Willacy Detention Center a federal detention center Vice President Dick Cheney and other elected officials were also indicted 208 A judge dismissed the indictments and chastised the Willacy County district attorney Juan Angel Gonzales who brought the case 209 The district attorney himself had been under indictment for more than a year and a half before the judge dismissed the indictment The district attorney left office after losing in a Democratic primary in March 2008 208 All charges were dropped after further investigation 209 International investigation edit On November 14 2006 invoking universal jurisdiction legal proceedings were started in Germany against Gonzales for his alleged involvement under the command responsibility of prisoner abuse by writing the controversial legal opinions 210 On April 27 2007 Germany s Federal Prosecutor announced she would not proceed with an investigation In November 2007 the plaintiffs appealed the decision On April 21 2009 the Stuttgart Regional Appeals Court dismissed the appeal On March 28 2009 a Spanish court headed by Baltasar Garzon the judge who ordered the arrest of former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet announced it would begin an investigation into whether or not Gonzales and five other former Bush Justice and Defense officials violated international law by providing the Bush Administration a legal framework and basis for the torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay Garzon said that it was highly probable the matter would go to court and that arrest warrants would be issued Also named in the Spanish court s investigation are John Yoo Douglas Feith William Haynes II Jay Bybee and David Addington 211 212 In April 2010 on the advice of the Spanish Attorney General Candido Conde Pumpido who believes that an American tribunal should judge the case or dismiss it before a Spanish Court ever thinks about becoming involved prosecutors recommended that Judge Garzon should drop his investigation As CNN reported Mr Conde Pumpido told reporters that Judge Garzon s plan threatened to turn the court into a toy in the hands of people who are trying to do a political action 213 Main article The Bush SixTexas Supreme Court opinions editThis is a list of opinions in which Alberto Gonzales wrote the majority court opinion wrote a concurring opinion or wrote a dissent Cases in which he joined in an opinion written by another justice are not included A justice writes an opinion if the justice has primary responsibility for the opinion Justices are assisted by a law clerk who may play an important role in the actual analysis of legal issues and drafting of the opinion The Texas Supreme Court issued 84 opinions during Gonzales s tenure on the court according to LexisNexis Majority opinions edit Fitzgerald v Advanced Spine Fixation Systems 996 S W 2d 864 Tex 1999 Texas Farmers Insurance Company v Murphy 996 S W 2d 873 Tex 1999 Mid Century Insurance Company v Kidd 997 S W 2d 265 Tex 1999 General Motors Corporation v Sanchez 997 S W 2d 584 Tex 1999 In re Missouri Pac R R Co 998 S W 2d 212 Tex 1999 Mallios v Baker 11 S W 3d 157 Tex 2000 Gulf Insurance Company v Burns Motors 22 S W 3d 417 Tex 2000 Southwestern Refining Co v Bernal 22 S W 3d 425 Tex 2000 Golden Eagle Archery Inc v Jackson 24 S W 3d 362 Tex 2000 City of Fort Worth v Zimlich 29 S W 3d 62 Tex 2000 Prudential Insurance Company of America v Financial Review Services Inc 29 S W 3d 74 Tex 2000 Texas Department of Transportation v Able 35 S W 3d 608 Tex 2000 Pustejovsky v Rapid American Corp 35 S W 3d 643 Tex 2000 John G amp Marie Stella Kenedy Memorial Foundation v Dewhurst 44 Tex Sup J 268 2000 withdrawn 214 Concurring opinions edit In re Dallas Morning News 10 S W 3d 298 Tex 1999 Osterberg v Peca 12 S W 3d 31 Tex 2000 In re Jane Doe 3 19 S W 3d 300 Tex 2000 In re Doe 19 S W 3d 346 Tex 2000 This case is popularly referred to as In re Jane Doe 5 Grapevine Excavation Inc v Maryland Lloyds 35 S W 3d 1 Tex 2000 Partial dissent partial concurrence edit Lopez v Munoz Hockema amp Reed 22 S W 3d 857 Tex 2000 See also edit nbsp Texas portal nbsp Biography portalGeorge W Bush Supreme Court candidatesReferences edit a b c McElroy Lisa Tucker 2006 Alberto Gonzales Attorney General Millbrook Press ISBN 978 0822534181 Shenon Philip Johnston David August 28 2007 A Defender of Bush s Power Gonzales Resigns The New York Times Retrieved May 23 2019 Eggen Dan Fletcher Michael A August 27 2007 The Gonzales Resignation The Washington Post Retrieved July 19 2018 President Bush Discusses Resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales whitehouse gov August 27 2007 Retrieved July 18 2018 Alberto Gonzales June 3 2005 Living the American Dream Interview Interviewed by Academy of Achievement New York City Archived from the original on April 3 2007 Retrieved May 6 2007 Person Details for Alberto R Gonzales Texas Birth Index 1903 1997 FamilySearch Archived from the original on February 11 2015 Retrieved May 24 2019 Zaleski Katharine May 17 2006 Alberto Gonzales Admits His Grandparents May Have Been Illegal Immigrants From Mexico The Huffington Post Retrieved April 24 2007 Profile Attorney General Alberto Gonzales ABC News November 1 2005 Archived from the original on April 24 2009 Retrieved March 12 2009 Evans Jennifer December 11 2003 Alum Gonzales to Give Grads Send off Rice University Archived from the original on February 5 2021 Retrieved August 19 2009 Kaplan Mitch July 2005 An Interview with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Sallyport Rice University Archived from the original on March 26 2009 Retrieved August 21 2009 Secretary of State of Texas official tabulation for 2000 Primary Election and General Election 2005 International Summit Highlights Academy of Achievement Archived from the original on March 9 2011 Retrieved April 14 2011 George W Bush arrest record The Smoking Gun September 4 1976 Retrieved July 20 2018 a b c Swartz Mimi July 2010 The Outsider Texas Monthly Retrieved July 20 2018 Wassdorf Pete October 2003 Letters to the Editor The Atlantic Monthly Retrieved July 19 2018 Smith R Jeffrey January 6 2005 Gonzales s Clemency Memos Criticized The Washington Post Retrieved July 19 2018 Berlow Alan July August 2003 The Texas Clemency Memos The Atlantic Retrieved May 24 2019 Dean John W June 20 2003 White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales s Texas Execution Memos How They Reflect on the President And May Affect Gonzales s Supreme Court Chances FindLaw Retrieved May 24 2019 a b Fletcher Michael A Smith R Jeffrey August 28 2007 Gonzales leaves a controversial legacy The Seattle Times Retrieved August 15 2017 a b Decision Re Application of the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War to the Conflict with Al Qaeda and the Taliban Memorandum for the President Archived from the original on August 25 2010 Visit to Guantanamo Bay Second Report of Session 2006 07 PDF House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee Report p 27 para 85 Retrieved July 20 2018 We conclude that by its own test the Government should recognise that the Geneva Conventions are failing to provide necessary protection because they lack clarity and are out of date We recommend that the Government work with other signatories to the Geneva Conventions and with the International Committee of the Red Cross to update the Conventions in a way that deals more satisfactorily with asymmetric warfare with international terrorism with the status of irregular combatants and with the treatment of detainees Letter dated February 1 2008 from Attorney General John Ashcroft to the President of the United States a b c Previously Secret Torture Memo Released CNN July 24 2008 Retrieved July 18 2018 Memorandum for John Rizzo Acting General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency re Interrogation of Al Qaeda operative PDF Office of Legal Counsel United States Department of Justice August 1 2002 Memorandum for Alberto R Gonzales Counsel to President re Standards of Conduct for Interrogation Under 18 U S C 2340 2340A PDF Office of Legal Counsel Department of Justice August 1 2002 Retrieved July 18 2018 a b c Mayer Jane 2008 The Dark Side The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals Knopf Doubleday Publishing p 199 ISBN 978 0307456298 a b Mazzetti Mark September 24 2008 Bush Aides Linked to Talks on Interrogations The New York Times Retrieved July 18 2018 Warrick Joby Finn Peter April 22 2009 Harsh Tactics Readied Before Their Approval The Washington Post Retrieved July 18 2018 Koppelman Alex July 17 2008 Ashcroft suggests CIA sought legal approval after torture began Salon Johnston David Risen James June 27 2004 The Reach Of War The Interrogations Aides Say Memo Backed Coercion Already In Use The New York Times Retrieved July 18 2018 Leopold Jason February 22 2009 Yoo s Legal Memos Gave Bush Retroactive Cover Over Torture The Public Record Archived from the original on April 2 2010 Retrieved July 18 2018 Andersson Hilary July 13 2009 Did America break its torture law BBC News Panorama Retrieved July 18 2018 US waterboarding row rekindled BBC News July 13 2009 Retrieved July 18 2018 Bybee Jay Yoo John August 1 2002 Memorandum for John Rizzo Acting General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency Interrogation of al Qaeda Operative PDF U S Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel Archived from the original PDF on September 28 2009 a b c d Enforced Disappearance Illegal Interstate Transfer and Other Human Rights Abuses Involving the UK Overseas Territories Executive Summary Reprieve October 18 2007 via publications parliament uk a b c Pincus Walter October 5 2006 Waterboarding Historically Controversial The Washington Post Retrieved July 18 2018 Goodman Amy July 18 2008 The Dark Side Jane Mayer on the Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals Democracy Now Retrieved July 18 2018 Bradbury Steven G May 10 2005 Memorandum for John Rizzo Re Application for 18 U S C 2340 2340A to Certain Techniques That May be Used In The Interrogation of a High Value al Qaeda Detainee PDF ACLU Archived from the original PDF on August 12 2011 Retrieved October 24 2011 a b Shane Scott Johnston David Risen James October 4 2007 Secret U S Endorsement of Severe Interrogations The New York Times Archived from the original on February 3 2017 Retrieved May 18 2017 Levin Daniel December 30 2004 Definition of Torture Under 18 U S C 2340 2340A PDF United States Department of Justice Retrieved December 22 2014 Johnston David Shane Scott October 4 2007 Congress Seeks Justice Dept Documents on Interrogation The New York Times Archived from the original on June 5 2015 Retrieved October 4 2007 Obama U S will not torture NBC News Associated Press January 9 2009 Retrieved July 18 2018 Executive Order 13491 Ensuring Lawful Interrogations Executive Order 13491 Whitehouse gov January 26 2009 Retrieved July 19 2018 de Vogue Ariane April 16 2009 DOJ Releases Controversial Torture Memos ABC News Retrieved June 1 2017 Gonzales Bush Go Back a Long Way NPR March 20 2007 Retrieved August 27 2007 Gonzales explains bedside meeting with ailing Ashcroft Politics CNN July 24 2007 Archived from the original on March 9 2008 Retrieved September 1 2007 Klatell James May 19 2007 Gonzales Rapped As President s Yes Man CBS News Associated Press Retrieved May 24 2019 a b Cohen Andrew April 3 2007 Part I Alberto Gonzales A Willing Accessory at Justice The Washington Post Archived from the original on August 21 2008 Retrieved August 27 2007 a b National Journal For the Defense March 3 2006 White House Blocks Release of Reagan Era Presidential Records August 31 2001 Retrieved May 3 2011 Opinion of the D C District Court PDF October 1 2007 Archived PDF from the original on February 8 2011 Retrieved May 2 2011 Savage David G May 11 2005 Court Lets Cheney Keep Talks Secret Los Angeles Times Retrieved July 20 2018 Bumiller Elisabeth Lewis Neil A November 12 2004 Choice of Gonzales May Blaze a Trail for the High Court The New York Times Retrieved April 23 2010 On the Nomination Confirmation Alberto R Gonzales to be Attorney General United States Senate Roll Call Votes 109th Congress 1st Session American Bar Association Task Force on Terrorism and the law report and recommendations on Military Commissions PDF American Bar Association January 4 2002 Retrieved December 16 2007 Syllabus Hamdan v Rumsfeld Secretary of Defense PDF Supreme Court of the United States October 2005 Retrieved December 17 2007 Glaberson William May 2 2009 U S May Revive Guantanamo Military Courts webpage The New York Times Retrieved May 2 2009 Egelko Bob January 24 2007 Gonzales says the Constitution doesn t guarantee habeas corpus San Francisco Chronicle Retrieved June 19 2007 a b Rupar Aaron January 19 2007 Gonzales There Is No Express Grant of Habeas Corpus In The Constitution ThinkProgress Retrieved July 19 2018 a b Parry Robert January 19 2007 Gonzales Questions Habeas Corpus Commentary Baltimore Chronicle amp Sentinel Archived from the original on August 21 2007 Retrieved August 28 2007 a b Hamilton Alexander July 1788 The Federalist Papers No 84 The Avalon Project Archived from the original on May 3 2007 Retrieved April 24 2007 Chemerinsky Erwin 1989 Federal Jurisdiction Little Brown and Company p 679 ISBN 978 0316137591 Duker William F November 21 1980 A Constitutional History of Habeas Corpus Bloomsbury Academic pp 135 136 ISBN 978 0313222641 Immigration and Naturalization Service v St Cyr 533 U S 289 U S 2001 R Fallon 2003 Hart and Wechsler s The Federal Courts and the Federal System 5th ed p 1289 ISBN 978 1 5877 8534 4 See also Kennedy 200 Department of Justice responses to Questions for the record posed to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Senate Judiciary Committee Oversight Hearing January 18 2007 Part 3 Submitted to the Honorable Patrick Leahy by letter dated April 13 2007 from Richard A Hertling Acting Assistant Attorney General Office of Legislative Affairs 28 U S C 541 Testimony of The Honorable Alberto Gonzales Attorney General of the United States PDF United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary April 19 2007 Retrieved May 24 2019 Plan for Replacing Certain United States Attorneys PDF Archived from the original PDF on July 8 2008 Justice Department Announces Appointment of J Timothy Griffin as Interim United States Attorney PDF Press Release Department of Justice December 15 2006 Archived from the original PDF on August 9 2007 Retrieved May 28 2007 Waas Murray May 10 2007 Administration Withheld E Mails About Rove National Journal National Journal Group Archived from the original on May 22 2007 Retrieved May 28 2007 Q amp A from Committee for Bud Cummins PDF United States House Committee on the Judiciary n d Archived from the original PDF on June 26 2008 Retrieved May 18 2007 Johnston David February 25 2007 Reviews of 6 fired attorneys positive The Washington Post Archived from the original on October 15 2007 Retrieved March 7 2006 Moschella Will March 6 2007 House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law Holds a Hearing on the Dismissal of U S Attorneys House Judiciary Committee Archived from the original on November 14 2019 Retrieved May 24 2019 MOSCHELLA No And let me just say that has been talked about EARS reports are not reviews of the U S attorneys themselves The U S attorneys have two supervisors the attorney general and the deputy attorney general Dismissal of U S Attorneys House Judiciary Committee May 23 2007 1 05 00 a b Alberto Gonzales Senate Judiciary Committee Testimony C SPAN April 19 2007 7 48 49 amp 62 a b Transcript of Media Availability with Attorney General Alberto R Gonzales United States Department of Justice March 13 2007 Retrieved May 24 2019 Obviously I am concerned about the fact that information incomplete information was communicated or may have been communicated to the Congress I believe very strongly in our obligation to ensure that when we provide information to the Congress it is accurate and that it is complete and I am very dismayed that that may not have occurred here Prosecutor Firings Are My Bad Gonzales AP March 13 2007 Archived from the original on October 15 2007 Jakes Jordan Lara March 26 2007 White House Backs AG As Support Wanes San Francisco Chronicle Associated Press Archived from the original on June 24 2008 Retrieved September 1 2007 Jan Crawford Greenburg and Ariane de Vogue April 16 2007 Gonzales Contradicts His Own Testimony ABC News Retrieved September 3 2007 a b Johnson Kevin April 20 2007 Gonzales seeks GOP support USA Today CQ Transcripts Wire April 19 2007 Gonzales Testifies Before Senate Panel Part II The Washington Post Schumer 4 on YouTube a b c Bush Ally Gonzales resigns post BBC News August 27 2007 Retrieved August 28 2007 a b c d e f g h i An Investigation Into the Removal of Nine U S Attorneys in 2006 PDF U S Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility September 2008 Archived from the original PDF on March 2 2020 Retrieved July 20 2018 General Pinata s Exoneration The Wall Street Journal July 23 2010 Retrieved July 20 2018 Letter dated July 21 2010 from Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich to Chairman John Conyers of the House Judiciary Committee regarding the investigation by Assistant United States Attorney Nora R Dannehy PDF July 21 2010 Retrieved July 20 2018 a b Johnson Carrie August 12 2009 House Judiciary Chairman Says U S Attorney Firings Were Petty Patronage The Washington Post Retrieved July 18 2018 Apuzzo Matt Yost Pete July 21 2010 DOJ Prosecutor firing was politics not crime Boston com AP Retrieved July 19 2018 A Review of the Federal Bureau of Investigation s Use of National Security Letters PDF United States Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General Report March 2007 Retrieved April 12 2007 Risen Jim Lichtblau Eric December 16 2005 Bush Lets U S Spy on Callers Without Courts The New York Times Retrieved May 24 2019 Calame Byron August 13 2006 Eavesdropping and the Election An Answer on the Question of Timing The New York Times Retrieved July 20 2018 President s Radio Address georgewbush whitehouse archives gov December 17 2005 Retrieved October 26 2018 a b Pincus Walter May 22 2006 Prosecution of Journalists Is Possible in NSA Leaks The Washington Post Retrieved July 19 2018 Letters from R Hertling Acting Assistant Attorney General to Rep Conyers March 22 2007 see also DOJ000748 63 Letter from R Hertling to Sen Feingold Sen Schumer Sen Durbin Sen Kennedy Rep Hinchy Rep Lewis and Rep Woolsey same DOJ 000772 Letter from R Hertling to Sen Leahy June 21 2007 at 1 explaining that Attorney General Gonzales does not have authority to grant access to classified information relating to TSP DOJ 000774 same to Senator Specter Senate Judiciary Hearing Electronic Surveillance Authority Part 1 C SPAN February 6 2006 Gonzales Alberto January 24 2006 Prepared Remarks at the Georgetown University Law Center Retrieved July 19 2018 Alberto Gonzales Hosts Ask the White House georgewbush whitehouse archives gov January 25 2006 Retrieved July 19 2018 Blitzer Wolf February 2 2006 Spying Slugfest Massive Manhunt Under Way in Massachusetts John Boehner Elected to Replace Tom DeLay as House Majority Leader Super Bowl Security Extraordinary Law Enforcement Departments Face Difficulties Recruiting Web Sites Pirate Radio Offer Howard Stern For Free Saddam Skips Court Drug Smuggling With Puppies Weight Loss Pill The Situation Room CNN Retrieved July 19 2018 The NSA Program to Detect and Prevent Terrorist Attacks Myth v Reality PDF United States Department of Justice January 27 2006 Retrieved July 19 2018 King Larry January 16 2006 Interview With Alberto Gonzales Interview With James Risen Larry King Live Retrieved July 19 2018 Klaidman Daniel December 13 2008 Now We Know What the Battle Was About Newsweek Archived from the original on January 10 2010 Mirror Schumer Calls for Special Prosecutor for Gonzales Perjury CNN July 28 2007 Archived from the original on November 18 2021 via YouTube Bush George W November 9 2010 Decision Points Crown ISBN 978 0 307 59061 9 Johnston David May 16 2007 Bush Intervened in Dispute Over N S A Eavesdropping The New York Times Archived from the original on May 11 2011 Retrieved April 23 2010 a b c Preserving Prosecutorial Independence Is the Department of Justice Politicizing the Hiring and Firing of U S Attorneys Part IV Government Publishing Office May 15 2007 Retrieved July 19 2018 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a work ignored help a b c d e f Suarez Ray July 27 2007 Democrats Seek Perjury Charge for Attorney General PBS NewsHour Archived from the original on September 29 2007 Retrieved July 20 2018 Rosen Jeffrey September 7 2007 Conscience of a Conservative The New York Times Magazine Archived from the original on December 9 2008 Retrieved September 5 2007 J Goldsmith Testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee October 2 2007 at 10 a b Text F B I Director s Notes PDF The New York Times August 17 2007 a b Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Dismissal of U S Attorneys C SPAN July 24 2007 Retrieved July 21 2018 a b c d e f g h i j k l Office of Inspector General of the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General of the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General of the Central Intelligence Agency Office of Inspector General of the National Security Agency Office of the Director of National Intelligence July 10 2009 Unclassified Report on the President s Surveillance Program PDF Retrieved July 19 2018 Lithwick Dahlia July 10 2007 Hardly Working How Alberto Gonzales s incompetence became a defense for his wrongdoing Slate Retrieved May 24 2019 Johnston David Shane Scott July 25 2007 Gonzales Denies Improper Pressure on Ashcroft The New York Times Documents Dispute Gonzales Testimony The New York Times Associated Press July 26 2007 Retrieved July 19 2018 Stout David July 26 2007 F B I Chief Challenges Gonzales s Testimony The New York Times Retrieved July 19 2018 Johnston David Shane Scott August 17 2007 Notes Detail Pressure on Ashcroft Over Spying The New York Times Yen Hope July 30 2007 Will Gonzales face a perjury inquiry The Oklahoman Associated Press Retrieved May 24 2019 Fletcher Michael June 28 2007 Senators Subpoena The White House The Washington Post Retrieved May 24 2019 Letter to Fred Fielding Esq Counsel to the President PDF United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary Patrick Leahy Chairman August 8 2007 Archived from the original PDF on January 6 2010 Riechmann Deb August 18 2007 White House Wants More Time on Subpoenas The Washington Post Associated Press dead link Holland Jesse J August 20 2007 Leahy Threatens Bush Aides With Contempt The Washington Post Associated Press Stout David July 27 2007 White House Backs Gonzales on Testimony The New York Times Archived from the original on June 5 2015 Shenon Philip Johnston David August 29 2007 Democrats Say They Will Press Gonzales Inquiries The New York Times Retrieved July 20 2018 Shenon Philip August 30 2007 Testimony by Gonzales Is Subject of Inquiry The New York Times Letter from J M McConnell Director of National Intelligence to Senator Arlen Specter Ranking Member Senate Committee on the Judiciary PDF July 31 2007 Retrieved July 20 2018 Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing February 6 2006 supra note 21 at 200 Questions and Answers Responses and Alberto R Gonzales to Questions from Senator Russell Feingold July 17 2006 id at 62 statement of Alberto Gonzales Gonzales to senators I may have created confusion August 1 2007 Retrieved July 20 2018 Preserving Prosecutorial Independence Hearing Before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary Part IV 110th Congress 7 May 15 2007 15 and 19 Retrieved October 26 2018 James Comey I ve tried Senator not to confirm that I m talking about any particular program I just don t feel comfortable in an open forum Preserving the Rule of Law in the Fight Against Terror Hearing Before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary 110th Congress 12 C SPAN October 2 2007 Jack Goldsmith Well let me just say in Judge Gonzales s defense that there is a technical interpretation of what he said that is true but it s very difficult to talk about it there s confusion about what the labels refer to and it s very difficult to talk about it in an unclassified setting I could certainly explain it to you in much greater detail in a closed session a b GONZALES v CARHART LII Legal Information Institute Retrieved April 5 2022 Do As We Say Not As We Do Says the Right Wing on Judicial Nominees People for the American Way July 6 2005 Archived from the original on February 20 2008 No to Justice Gonzales National Review Online June 28 2005 Fineman Howard Rosenberg Debra July 6 2005 The Holy War Begins Bush must choose between the big tent or the revival tent Newsweek Archived from the original on July 8 2005 Hispanic December 2005 January 2006 p 28 Hunt Terrence April 23 2007 Gonzales says he intends to remain as attorney general Bush voices support Deseret News AP Retrieved July 19 2018 Stout David May 24 2007 Bush Backs Gonzales in Face of No Confidence Vote The New York Times Retrieved August 28 2007 H Res 417 Library of Congress May 21 2007 Archived from the original on December 9 2014 Retrieved May 24 2007 Roll call 110th congress 1st Session Senate vote number 207 On the Cloture Motion Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Proceed to the Consideration of S J Res 14 United States Senate June 11 2007 Retrieved June 12 2007 via senate gov Lipton Eric June 11 2007 No Confidence Vote on Gonzales Fails in the Senate The New York Times Archived from the original on June 5 2015 Retrieved July 11 2007 BREAKING House Democrats Introducing Bill To Investigate Impeachment Of Alberto Gonzales Crooks and Liars Archived from the original on September 30 2007 Inslee Jay July 31 2007 That the Committee on the Judiciary shall investigate fully whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to impeach Alberto R Gonzales Attorney General Retrieved May 24 2019 Press Release dated March 16 2007 from the Latino Coalition The Latino Coalition Supports Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and calls for an end to Political Persecution against Leading Hispanic Americans Va Tech tragedy delays Gonzales testimony AP April 16 2007 Retrieved July 20 2018 In a March 16 letter to President Bush for example Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association president Art Gordon called Gonzales an honest man with high integrity Batt Tony March 15 2007 Reid expects attorney general to quit Las Vegas Review Journal March 11 Schumer calls on Gonzales to resign The Washington Post March 11 2007 Retrieved May 24 2019 Sen Charles Schumer March 13 2007 Schumer Calls For Gonzales s Resignation Television production CNN Archived from the original on November 18 2021 Retrieved August 27 2007 carrying out the political wishes of the President Gonzales Vows To Stay On The Job Politics CBS News April 23 2007 Retrieved August 27 2007 I don t think he can be effective a b c d e f g h Calling for Gonzales s Resignation Common Cause n d Archived from the original on January 30 2008 Cantwell calls for Gonzales to resign KEPR TV April 25 2007 Archived from the original on September 30 2007 Retrieved September 1 2007 Tapper Jake Smith Cindy March 13 2007 Exclusive Hillary Clinton Calls for Gonzales Resignation ABC News Retrieved July 18 2018 Presidential Hopefuls Speak Up on Prosecutor Dismissals Congressional Quarterly March 19 2007 Retrieved July 18 2018 via nytimes com Werner Erica March 25 2007 Feinstein calls for Attorney General Gonzales to resign United States Senator Dianne Feinstein Archived from the original on October 15 2007 Retrieved September 1 2007 I believe he should step down Kennedy Resignation is long overdue Archived from the original on March 22 2007 Retrieved July 18 2018 Kerry calls on Bush to fire Attorney General March 13 2007 Archived from the original on January 12 2009 Retrieved July 19 2018 via senate gov C SPAN alert Update II Arkansas Times March 15 2007 Retrieved July 18 2018 Given the involvement of the Attorney General s office in intentionally trying to avoid the Senate confirmation process combined with the serious reservations many in the Senate have had about the Attorney General s nomination since he was appointed I believe the Administration and the nation would be better served if Mr Gonzales were replaced Obama Renews Call for Gonzales to be Replaced as Attorney General Barack Obama March 29 2007 Archived from the original on June 13 2007 Retrieved August 27 2007 subverted justice to promote a political agenda Pryor Calls for Attorney General Gonzales to Resign Senate office of Mark Pryor March 15 2007 Archived from the original on March 28 2007 Retrieved April 17 2007 when the Attorney General lies to a United States Senator it s time for that Attorney General to go Sen Whitehouse Gonzales not convincing National Public Radio All Things Considered April 19 2007 Retrieved August 28 2007 Pelosi Gonzales must resign Press Office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi United States House of Representatives Press release April 20 2007 Archived from the original on December 3 2010 via speaker gov a b Kiely Kathy Johnson Kevin March 15 2007 Second GOP senator suggests Gonzales should go USA Today Retrieved April 20 2007 Lara Jakes Jordan April 19 2007 Gonzales Confronts Call for Resignation ABC News Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Jeff Zeleny March 14 2007 Mistakes Made on Prosecutors Gonzales Admits The New York Times Archived from the original on October 15 2007 McCain It would be best for Gonzales to quit NBC News Associated Press April 26 2007 Retrieved April 27 2007 GOP Senator says Gonzales should consider resigning CNN April 20 2007 Retrieved April 20 2007 Kiely Kathy Johnson Kevin March 15 2007 Second GOP senator suggests Gonzales should go USA Today Retrieved September 1 2007 GOP Sen Norm Coleman of Minnesota said he is deeply concerned about how this whole process has been handled Schemo Diana Jean April 23 2007 Gonzales bad for Justice Department Specter says Deseret News Retrieved August 28 2007 Kellman Laurie May 16 2007 Hagel Demands Gonzales s Resignation The Washington Post Retrieved September 1 2007 Alfano Sean March 15 2007 Strategist Says Gonzales Is Finished CBS News Retrieved August 28 2007 Roode Benjamin March 23 2007 Gillmor joins in calls for Gonzales to go from the Sandusky Register Sandusky Register Archived from the original on September 29 2007 Retrieved August 28 2007 Goetz Kaomi April 5 2007 Ehlers Says U S Attorney General Should Resign Michigan Radio News NPR Retrieved April 22 2007 Nevada Republican congressman calls for Gonzales to step down Las Vegas Sun April 21 2007 Archived from the original on April 26 2007 Retrieved April 22 2007 Bipartisan questioning about Gonzales needs to continue Daily Nebraskan April 10 2007 Archived from the original on October 15 2007 Retrieved April 16 2006 Smith Donna April 21 2007 House Republican leader says Gonzales should go Reuters Retrieved May 24 2019 I think it is time for fresh leadership at the Department of Justice Putnam said in a brief telephone interview Tancredo Gonzales should move on but For illegal immigration prosecutions not for U S attorney flap NBC News Associated Press March 21 2007 Retrieved July 18 2018 Barrett Ted Bohn Kevin Malveaux Suzanne April 23 2007 White House insiders Gonzales hurt himself before panel CNN Retrieved July 18 2018 Skolnik Sam March 22 2007 Bogden out for wrong reasons Las Vegas Sun Archived from the original on July 19 2018 Retrieved July 18 2018 Republican support for Gonzales erodes NBC News Associated Press March 17 2007 Retrieved July 18 2018 Alfano Sean March 16 2007 Will Gonzales Fall For Attorney Firings CBS News Retrieved July 18 2018 Gonzales rejects calls for resignation Boston com March 13 2007 Retrieved July 18 2018 Bozell III L Brent March 29 2007 Sunday s Pseudo Republicans Media Research Center Archived from the original on September 27 2007 Retrieved September 1 2007 Eggen Dan Williamson Elizabeth September 19 2007 Democrats May Tie Confirmation to Gonzales Papers The Washington Post pp A10 Retrieved September 19 2007 Isikoff Michael Josenball Mark October 10 2007 Gonzales Hires a Top Gun Still under investigation by Congress and Justice Department lawyers who once worked for him the former attorney general has turned to a leading Washington attorney to help him beat the rap Newsweek Archived from the original on October 12 2007 Retrieved October 13 2007 Morlin Bill October 20 2007 Gonzales could be prosecuted McKay says The Spokesman Review Archived from the original on October 22 2007 Retrieved July 19 2018 Eggen Dan November 15 2007 Gonzales Defense Fund Set Up Former Attorney General s Legal Fees Mount in Probe The Washington Post Retrieved November 15 2007 An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring by Monica Goodling and Other Staff in the Office of the Attorney General PDF United States Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General United States Department of Justice July 28 2008 Archived from the original PDF on March 30 2018 Retrieved July 20 2018 a b c Totenberg Nina September 2 2008 Report Ex AG Gonzales Mishandled Classified Info All Things Considered National Public Radio Retrieved July 18 2018 Report of Investigation Regarding Allegations of Mishandling of Classified Documents by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales PDF Office of the Inspector General United States Department of Justice September 2 2008 Retrieved July 18 2018 Lewis Neil A April 13 2008 In Searching for New Job Gonzales Sees No Takers The New York Times Retrieved April 16 2008 Doyle Rogers Distinguished Chair of Law to be Filled by Alberto Gonzales Belmont University Press release Archived from the original on October 12 2011 Retrieved November 10 2011 Former United States Attorney General Judge Alberto Gonzales Joins Waller Lansden Dortch amp Davis Waller Lansden Archived from the original on April 5 2012 Retrieved October 11 2011 Alberto Gonzales Interview Excerpts The Wall Street Journal December 31 2008 Retrieved January 1 2009 a b Editorial Gonzo the Clown Daily News January 5 2009 Retrieved January 12 2009 a b Perez Evan December 31 2008 Gonzales Defends Role in Antiterror Policies The Wall Street Journal Blitzer Wolf May 26 2009 Obama s Supreme Court Nominee Senators Judge Sotomayor When Law and Politics Collide The Situation Room CNN Retrieved July 19 2018 King Larry April 29 2010 Oil Slick is 120 Miles Wide Is Arizona s Immigration Law Too Tough Larry King Live Retrieved July 21 2018 Geraldo at Large Geraldo Rivera December 22 2009 Hopper Douglas January 26 2009 Alberto Gonzales Defends His Tenure Tell Me More NPR Retrieved July 18 2018 Anchor Babies aren t the problem with immigration The Washington Post August 22 2010 Retrieved July 19 2018 The Latino Factor Los Angeles Times July 2 2008 Retrieved July 19 2018 We owe it to our children to protect them USA Today May 14 2008 Taxi to the Dark Side 2007 at IMDb nbsp Controversial former U S Attorney General hired at Texas Tech Lubbock Avalanche Journal July 7 2009 Retrieved July 7 2009 Former AG Gonzales to teach at Texas Tech The Sydney Morning Herald Associated Press July 7 2009 Retrieved May 24 2019 Post Sally July 7 2009 Alberto Gonzales Brings Expertise Experience to Texas Tech Texas Tech Today Retrieved July 8 2009 Lederman Doug July 27 2009 Texas Tech Profs Oppose Hiring of Alberto Gonzales Inside Higher Ed Retrieved May 24 2019 The Daily Toreador March 30 2009 Gonzales Adapts to West Texas life Tech professorship a b Dick Cheney Alberto Gonzales indicted in S Texas Houston Chronicle November 18 2008 Archived from the original on June 27 2009 a b Sherman Christopher December 2 2008 Cheney indictment dropped Los Angeles Times AP Retrieved July 18 2018 Universal jurisdiction Criminal Complaint PDF The Center for Constitutional Rights 2006 Archived from the original PDF on May 24 2007 Zagorin Adam November 10 2006 Charges Sought Against Rumsfeld Over Prison Abuse Time War Crimes Suit Prepared against Rumsfeld Democracy Now November 9 2006 Archived from the original on November 14 2007 Brecher Jeremy Smith Brendan November 3 2006 War Criminals Beware The Nation Archived from the original on November 20 2006 Simons Marlise March 28 2009 Spanish Court Weighs Inquiry on Torture for 6 Bush Era Officials The New York Times Archived from the original on April 16 2009 Rucinski Tracy March 28 2009 Spain may decide Guantanamo probe this week Reuters Archived from the original on April 26 2009 Retrieved March 29 2009 Worthington Andy September 8 2009 Spanish Judge Resumes Torture Case Against Six Senior Bush Lawyers HuffPost Retrieved July 19 2018 The Texas Supreme Court granted rehearing and reversed its own judgment in an opinion written by Justice Hecht Kenedy Memorial Foundation v Dewhurst 90 S W 3d 268 Tex 2002 External links editAlberto Gonzales at Wikipedia s sister projects nbsp Definitions from Wiktionary nbsp Media from Commons nbsp News from Wikinews nbsp Quotations from Wikiquote nbsp Texts from Wikisource nbsp Textbooks from Wikibooks nbsp Resources from Wikiversity Official biography from whitehouse gov A second biography from ABC News Appearances on C SPANPolitical officesPreceded byTony Garza Secretary of State of Texas1998 1999 Succeeded byElton BomerLegal officesPreceded byRaul Gonzalez Associate Justice of the Texas Supreme Court1999 2001 Succeeded byWallace JeffersonPreceded byBeth Nolan White House Counsel2001 2005 Succeeded byHarriet MiersPreceded byJohn Ashcroft United States Attorney General2005 2007 Succeeded byMichael MukaseyU S order of precedence ceremonial Preceded byJim Nicholsonas Former US Cabinet Member Order of precedence of the United Statesas Former US Cabinet Member Succeeded byCarlos Gutierrezas Former US Cabinet Member Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Alberto Gonzales amp oldid 1185141469, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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