Alberto Gonzales

Alberto R. Gonzales
80th United States Attorney General
Incumbent
Assumed office February 3, 2005
President	George W. Bush
Preceded by	John Ashcroft
Personal details
Born	(1955-08-04) August 4, 1955 San Antonio, Texas
Political party	Republican

Alberto R. Gonzales (born August 4, 1955) is the 80th and current Attorney General of the United States. He formerly served under U.S. President George W. Bush as White House Counsel, and prior to that served on the Texas Supreme Court. He has been criticized for recent FBI infractions in improperly, and at times perhaps illegally, using the USA PATRIOT Act to uncover personal information about U.S. citizens in terrorism investigations. His role in the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys has led several members of Congress to call for his resignation.

Personal background

Gonzales was born in San Antonio, Texas, and raised in Humble, near Houston. He was the second of eight children born to Pablos and Maria Gonzales. His father, who died in 1982, was a construction worker. In a television interview, Gonzales told Wolf Blitzer on CNN that no immigration documentation exists for three of his grandparents and they may have entered and resided in the United States illegally ([4]).

An honors student at MacArthur High School in Houston, Gonzales enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1973, for a four year term of enlistment, serving two years at Fort Yukon, Alaska and two years as a cadet at the United States Air Force Academy. Prior to beginning his third year at the academy, which would have caused him to incur a further service obligation, he transferred to Rice University (Houston, Texas), where he was a member of Lovett College and earned a bachelor's degree in political science in 1979; he then earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Harvard Law School in 1982. He 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.

Gonzales is a Catholic, but prefers to keep a low profile about his religious affiliation.

Texas career

Gonzales was an attorney in private practice from 1982 until 1994 with the Houston law firm Vinson and Elkins, where he became a partner. 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 finally to be named to the Texas Supreme Court in 1999, both appointments made by Governor Bush.

Outside of his political and legal career, Gonzales was active in the community. He was a board director of the United Way of the Texas Gulf Coast from 1993 to 1994, and President of Leadership Houston during this same period. In 1994, Gonzales served as Chair of the Commission for District Decentralization of the Houston Independent School District, and as a member of the Committee on Undergraduate Admissions for Rice University. He was chosen as one of Five Outstanding Young Texans by the Texas Jaycees in 1994. He was a member of delegations sent by the American Council of Young Political Leaders to Mexico in 1996 and to the People's Republic of China in 1995. He received the Presidential Citation from the State Bar of Texas in 1997 for 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.

As counsel to Governor Bush, Gonzales helped Bush be excused from 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. Gonzales' formal request for Bush to be excused from jury duty hinged upon the fact that, as Governor of Texas, he might be called upon to pardon the accused in the case.

As Governor Bush's counsel in Texas, Gonzales also reviewed all clemency requests. A 2003 article in The Atlantic Monthly asserts that Gonzales gave insufficient counsel, and failed to second-guess convictions and failed appeals. Only one death sentence was over-turned by Governor Bush (The state of Texas executed more prisoners during Gonzales' term, and still has more prisoners on death row, than any other state.)

War on Terror

The Executive Order 13233, drafted by Gonzales and issued by 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.

Gonzales authored a controversial memo in January of 2002 that explored whether Article III of the Geneva Convention even 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 Article III protection to Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. He concluded that Article III was outdated and ill-suited for dealing with captured Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. He described as "quaint" the provisions that require providing captured Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters "commissary privileges, scrip, athletic uniforms, and scientific instruments". He also 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 argued that undefined language in the Geneva Convention, such as "outrages upon personal dignity" and "inhuman treatment", could make officials and military leaders subject to the War Crimes Act of 1996 if mistreatment was discovered.

In 2004, when this memo was leaked to the press, Gonzales said about the memo in Senate confirmation hearings that "... I don't recall today whether or not I was in agreement with all of the analysis, but I don't have a disagreement with the conclusions then reached by the department."

Gonzales also authored the Presidential Order which authorized the use of military tribunals to try terrorist suspects. He fought with Congress to keep Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy task force documents from being reviewed. Gonzales was also an early advocate of the controversial USA PATRIOT Act. He is also accused of being involved in the decision to allow foreign combatants in U.S. custody to be deported to nations that allow torture, in order to extract further information from them; he denies that he has ever supported this measure.

On June 23,2006 Gonzales, along with Deputy Director of the FBI John S. Pistole gave a high level press briefing involving the Miami bomb plot to attack the Sears Tower.

On November 14, 2006, invoking universal jurisdiction, legal proceedings were started in Germany for his alleged involvement under the command responsibility of prisoner abuse by writing the controversial legal opinions.

Attorney General nomination and confirmation

File:Bush and gonzales.jpg

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.

Gonzales' 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 did not oppose abortion or affirmative action.

These departures from the conservative viewpoint elicited a strong degree of 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.

Despite the opposition, Gonzales was confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 60-36 on February 3, 2005. He was sworn in on February 14, 2005, becoming the highest-placed Hispanic ever in the U.S. Government.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor presents Gonzales to the audience after swearing him in as Attorney General, as Mrs. Gonzales looks on.

Speculation over a possible Supreme Court nomination

O'Connor vacancy

Shortly before the July 1, 2005 retirement 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 such as National Review magazine and Focus on the Family, among other socially conservative groups, stated they would oppose a Gonzales nomination.

Much of their opposition to Gonzales was based on his perceived support of abortion rights; typically, they cited his place in the majority opinions of various Texas Supreme Court rulings in a series of In re Jane Doe cases from 2000 that ordered lower courts to reconsider minor women's requests for a "judicial bypass" provided in a provision of Texas' parental notification law, and in one case (43 Tex. Sup. J. 910), granted the bypass that allowed the girl to obtain an abortion without notifying her parents. Gonzales wrote concurring opinions in two of these cases: In re Jane Doe 3 (43 Tex. Sup. J. 508) and In re Jane Doe 5 (43 Tex. Sup. J. 910). For In re Jane Doe 3 he concurred, on the legal grounds that the lower court had issued its ruling only one business day after the Texas Supreme Court had issued guidance on what the applicant for a judicial bypass must prove, with the differently reasoned majority opinion to remand the case to the lower courts.

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."

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." However, this speculation proved to be incorrect, 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 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 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.

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' 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. ^[5]

Controversies

Dismissal of U.S. Attorneys in 2006

Main article: Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy

On December 7 2006, eight United States Attorneys were notified by the United States Department of Justice that they were being dismissed, after the George W. Bush administration made the determination to seek their resignations. Although the Prosecutors serve at the pleasure of the President, critics have claimed the dismissals were either motivated by desire to install attorneys more loyal to the Republican party ("loyal Bushies", in the words of D. Kyle Sampson, Mr. 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 positive internal Justice Department performance reports. There were various hearings and testimony offered in January though March. Criticism increased upon the release of emails by Gonzales' chief of staff Kyle Sampson, which showed extensive communication between Sampson and White House Administration official Harriet Miers. Sampson resigned, but the emails indicate that a number of statements from the Dept of Justice, including statements made by Gonzales himself, were possibly inaccurate. According to the Attorney General, in a press conference given on March 13, "incomplete information was communicated or may have been communicated to Congress."

Gonzales gave more support when records subsequently released were seen to contradict some of his statements at the March 13 press conference. At that press conference he stated: "I never saw documents. We never had a discussion about where things stood." But DOJ records released on March 23 showed 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.". Despite insisting that he was not involved in the "deliberations" leading up to the firing of the attorneys, newly released emails suggest that he had indeed been notified and that he had given ultimate approval. Gonzales was scheduled to testify before Congress on April 17, 2007; (Link to Opening statement). However, the testimony was postponed until April 19 due to the Virginia Tech massacre .

In his prepared testimony, Gonzales insisted he left the decisions on the firings to his staff. However, ABC News 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.

No right of Habeas Corpus

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, by stating that there was no right of Habeas Corpus in the United States Constitution.

In short, Habeas Corpus is the right of an individual to have a trial before he is jailed. It is the protection against arbitrary imprisonment. Without Habeas Corpus you have no right to tell anyone you have been arrested, you have no right to legal counsel, you have no right to protest your innocence or even mistaken identity. Most Constitutional Scholars believe the right of habeas is the very foundation of our legal system, where none are supposed to be above the law and none beneath it.

The most likely explanation of why this statement shocked the Senator is that he is familiar with the 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."

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?

A video of the exchange, as well as a more complete transcript can be found on Think Progress. "Gonzales: There Is No Express Grant of Habeas Corpus In The Constitution". Think Progress. January 18, 2007.

Warrantless domestic eavesdropping program

Main article: NSA warrantless surveillance controversy

In a December 2005 article^[6] in The New York Times, it was revealed that the NSA was eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without proper warrants. This led to an investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility in the Justice Department. This investigation was shut down after the President denied investigators the security clearances necessary for their work. Some critics have alleged that the President did so in order to protect Gonzales from the internal probe.

Texas Youth Commission Scandal

Alberto Gonzales, along with U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, have been accused of failing to take action to hundreds of serious complaints and investigations against dozens of staff members concerning allegations that teachers, administrators and guards had sex with minor male inmates incarcerated in Texas Youth Commision programs.

Calls for resignation or firing

Several members of both houses of Congress have publicly said Gonzales should resign, or be fired by Bush. Calls for resignation intensified during and after a congressional hearing attended by Gonzales on 04/19/2007. During the hearing, Senators from both party scolded Gonzales for his inconsistent answers. Gonzales at times appeared to answer both yes and no. At one point he said, "I had everything to do with the decision." At others, he described the decision process as a consensus among top Justice officials. He also claimed a faulty memory seventy-one times during questioning.

The following is the list from the leadership in the U.S. Congress who have called for Gonzales's resignation:

• Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Speaker of the House of Representatives
• Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), Senate Majority Leader
• Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL), Senate Majority Whip
• Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Vice-Chairman of Senate Democrats; Chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
• Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee

Most of the calls for Gonzales' departure have come from Democrats:

• Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE)
• Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
• Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD)
• Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY)
• Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT)
• Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
• Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA)
• Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)
• Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
• Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
• Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL)
• Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL)
• Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR)

Some Republicans have also called for Gonzales to leave:

• Sen. John E. Sununu (R-NH), first Republican senator to call for firing
• Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR)
• Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK)
• Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
• Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)
• Rep. Paul Gillmor (R-OH)
• Rep. Vern Ehlers (R-MI)
• Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE)
• Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO)

In addition, several Republicans have been critical of Gonzales, while not actually calling for his resignation or firing:

• Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)
• Sen. John Ensign (R-NV)
• Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
• Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE)
• Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
• Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS), Senate Minority Whip
• Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee
• Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee
• Rep. Peter King (R-NY)

Legal career

List of Texas Supreme Court opinions, concurrences, and dissents by Gonzales

This is a list of cases in which Alberto Gonzales wrote the 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. The Texas Supreme Court issued 84 opinions during Gonzales's tenure on the court, according to LexisNexis.

Court opinions

• Fitzgerald v. Advanced Spine Fixation Systems (42 Tex. Sup. J. 985).
• Texas Farmers Insurance Company v. Murphy (42 Tex. Sup. J. 998)
• Mid-Century Insurance Company v. Kidd (42 Tex. Sup. J. 1007)
• In re Missouri Pac. R.R. Co. (42 Tex. Sup. J. 1018)
• General Motors Corporation v. Sanchez (42 Tex. Sup. J. 969)
• Mallios v. Baker (43 Tex. Sup. J. 254)
• Gulf Insurance Company v. Burns Motors (43 Tex. Sup. J. 647)
• Southwestern Refining Co. v. Bernal (43 Tex. Sup. J. 706)
• Golden Eagle Archery, Inc. v. Jackson (43 Tex. Sup. J. 989)
• City of Fort Worth v. Zimlich (43 Tex. Sup. J. 972)
• Prudential Insurance Company of America v. Financial Review Services, Inc. (43 Tex. Sup. J. 980)
• Texas Department of Transportation v. Able (43 Tex. Sup. J. 1055)
• Pustejovsky v. Rapid-American Corp. (44 Tex. Sup. J. 89)
• John G. & Marie Stella Kenedy Memorial Foundation v. Dewhurst (44 Tex. Sup. J. 268) (Opinion has been withdrawn by the court).

Concurring opinions

• In re Dallas Morning News (43 Tex. Sup. J. 192)
• Osterberg v. Peca (43 Tex. Sup. J. 380)
• In re Jane Doe 3 (43 Tex. Sup. J. 508)
• Lopez v. Munoz, Hockema, & Reed (43 Tex. Sup. J. 806) (Partial concurrence)
• In re Doe (43 Tex. Sup. J. 910) (This case is popularly referred to as "In re Jane Doe 5")
• Grapevine Excavation, Inc. v. Maryland Lloyds (43 Tex. Sup. J. 1086)

Dissenting opinions

• Lopez v. Munoz, Hockema, & Reed (43 Tex. Sup. J. 806) (Partial dissent)

See also

• 2006 Dismissal of U.S. Attorneys controversy

External links

• Official biography from whitehouse.gov
• Announcement of his nomination on CNN
• Current Law Office in Thomson Legal Record
• Vinson and Elkins, Lawyers
• A second biography from ABC News
• "Death in Texas" by Sister Helen Prejean in The New York Review of Books
• "A Poor Choice" — Human Rights Watch
• Letter to 9/11 Commission from FindLaw
• The Geneva Convention is "obsolete" memo in PDF from Washington in Depth, AP
• Bush Admin. policy memos re: torture, interrogations, and POW status from FindLaw
• Kennedy urges Senate to deny Gonzales nomination over torture policies from Senator Edward M. Kennedy, February 1, 2005.
• "Torture and Gonzales: An Exchange" from The New York Review of Books
• Gonzales Grilled Over Drowning Torture
• LaRaza Confirms Gonzales Is a Member
• Support of Torture Not Gonzales' Greatest Sin
• Transcript of Gonzoles' Press Conference, March 13, 2007, relating to the Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy.
• Bush defends Gonzales' role in US Attorney firings , Breaking Legal news, April 1, 2007
• Dangerous precedents, The Standard, Thursday, April 19, 2007

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