Bush Nominates Gonzales for Attorney General
Current White House Counsel Would Replace Outgoing Ashcroft

President Bush stands with his nominee for attorney general, current chief White House counsel Alberto Gonzales.

WASHINGTON (By William Branigin, Washington Post) November 10, 2004 - President Bush today nominated his White House counsel and trusted confidant, Alberto R. Gonzales, to be his new attorney general, filling the vacancy left by the retirement of John D. Ashcroft.

Gonzales, 49, a native of San Antonio, Tex., who served under Bush when he was Texas governor, would be the first Hispanic to head the U.S. Justice Department if, as expected, he is confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate.

"He always gives me his frank opinion," Bush said at the White House in announcing the nomination. "He is a calm and steady voice in times of crisis."

Bush said his nominee would continue what he said was the Justice Department's recent progress in fighting crime, waging the war on terrorism on the U.S. domestic front and enforcing civil rights laws. He also praised the outgoing attorney general, saying that "the nation is safer and more just today because John Ashcroft has served our country so well."

In brief remarks after Bush introduced him, Gonzales said, "The American people expect and deserve a Department of Justice guided by the rule of law."

Within the Hispanic community, he said, there are shared hopes and prayers for the opportunity to succeed and the chance to prove oneself.

"Mr. President, thank you for that chance," Gonzales said.

Hispanics greeted the nomination with a mixture of pride over its historic significance and concern about the direction of the Bush Justice Department.

Rep. José E. Serrano (D-N.Y.), the ranking Democrat on the appropriations subcommittee that funds the Justice Department, said in a statement that it was "tremendously exciting to see one of our own nominated for so important a position." But he said many questions "remain to be answered about both Gonzales's and the Bush administration's commitment to protecting our civil liberties and civil rights." He said the nominee's record raises concerns that "his Justice Department might continue Ashcroft's appalling approach to civil liberties."

Ashcroft, 62, a controversial figure who has had health problems this year, resigned in a Nov. 2 letter to Bush that was made public yesterday. While taking credit for declining crime rates and the prevention of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001, Ashcroft said he has been drained by the demands of his job as the nation's top law enforcement officer and that the Justice Department "would be well served by new leadership and fresh inspiration."

In tapping Gonzales for the post, Bush picked a fellow Texan who has stirred controversy himself for his role in memos condoning the possible torture of terrorist suspects and arguing that prisoners captured in Afghanistan are not protected by the Geneva Conventions. But the soft-spoken lawyer also has been described as a relative moderate whose conservative credentials are sometimes viewed with suspicion by Bush's more rightist supporters.

As Bush's White House counsel, Gonzales has provided the president with the legal groundwork for aggressively asserting executive authority in disputes with Congress and promoting government power in the war on terrorism.

"We push the envelope, but never beyond what the Constitution permits, in my judgment," Gonzales said in an interview with Washington Post staff writer Mike Allen in May. "We do believe very strongly in the protection of civil liberties, but there is a competing interest of the protection of the national security of this country. The key for the government is to try to find the appropriate balance."

He said he believes the administration has found that balance, but that it ultimately would be "up to the courts to tell us if we've made the right decision."

Gonzales's name has also come up a possible Bush appointee to fill a future vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, which has never had a Hispanic justice.

One of eight children of a construction worker, Gonzales grew up in modest circumstances in Houston. He enlisted in the U.S. Air Force after high school and later attended the Air Force Academy. But he subsequently decided to become a lawyer and graduated from Rice University in Houston before going on to Harvard Law School.

He worked for a Houston law firm for 13 years until Bush, then governor of Texas, unexpectedly picked him in 1995 to be his general counsel. In that capacity, Gonzales advised Bush on dozens of death penalty cases and, in 1996, reportedly helped the governor avoid having to disclose a 1976 misdemeanor conviction for drunken driving in Maine, an offense that was not publicly revealed until late in Bush's 2000 presidential campaign.

In 1997, Bush appointed Gonzales Texas secretary of state, and two years later named him to the Texas Supreme Court. As a result of that service, he is known around the White House as "the judge." As one of the president's most trusted advisers, he is among the few aides who meet with Bush alone.

In his role as White House counsel, Gonzales became embroiled in controversy over an August 2002 memo sent to him by the Justice Department's office of legal counsel in response to a CIA request for legal guidance. The memo advised the White House that torturing al Qaeda terrorists in captivity abroad "may be justified," and that international laws against torture "may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations" conducted in the U.S. war on terrorism, the Washington Post reported in June.

Although Gonzales did not write the memo, the author reportedly consulted White House lawyers extensively in drafting it and gave the White House the opinion it wanted, reflecting the Bush administration's desire to see how far it could legally go in interrogating suspected terrorists who might have information on planned attacks.

A January 2002 draft memo signed by Gonzales also subjected him to criticism when it was revealed that the memo called some Geneva Convention provisions outdated. The memo said the nature of the war on terrorism requires obtaining information quickly from captured terrorists to avoid new atrocities. This, it said, makes the conventions' strict limitations on questioning enemy prisoners "obsolete" and "renders quaint some of its provisions."

Earlier in his career, however, Gonzales attracted some grumbling from staunch Bush supporters who felt he was insufficiently conservative, in part because of suspicions about his commitment to eliminating affirmative action.

One complaint arose in 2000 when Gonzales voted with the majority in a 6-3 decision by the Texas Supreme Court that narrowly defined a law -- strongly supported by Bush -- requiring a minor to get parental permission before having an abortion. Critics charged that the decision would make it easier to qualify for exceptions to the law.