Al gonzalez biography

Gonzales, former Attorney General of the United States and former Counsel to the President—the only lawyer and only Hispanic to hold both these positions—an ultimate insider in the most tumultuous events in recent history. Born to a poor but proud working-class family in Humble, Texas, Gonzales was raised along with his seven siblings in a modest 2-bedroom home.

His loving and devout parents taught him the conservative values of hard work and accountability that motivated Gonzales to the highest echelons of power. He was a confidante to President George W. Jan 27, PM. Astronomers discover repeating radio bursts from distant 'dead' galaxy. Jan 24, AM. These companies are standing by their DEI policies amid backlash.

Jan 23, PM. Without putting hand on Bible, Trump takes oath of office. Jan 20, PM. ABC News Live. Gonzales was recognized as the Latino Lawyer of the Year by the Hispanic National Bar Association, and he received a Presidential Citation from the State Bar of Texas in for his dedication to addressing basic legal needs of the indigent.

Gonzales was born in San Antonio, Texas and raised in Houston. He and his wife, Rebecca Turner Gonzales, have three sons. This is historical material, "frozen in time. 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. Bush administration sought their resignation.

Although U. At least six of the eight had received positive performance reviews at the Department of Justice. Attorneys themselves. 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. That's basically what I knew as the Attorney General.

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. In his prepared testimony to Congress on April 19, , 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. 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 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. 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.

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. The Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility commenced an investigation into the removal of nine U. Attorneys and issued a report in September Attorneys, but there was no finding that the nine U.

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. 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. These findings were consistent with testimony given by Gonzales.

Politics was clearly involved. The report also concluded Todd Graves was removed to settle a political dispute in Missouri, which was motivated by politics. The IG report determined that some statements made by Gonzales at a March 13, , press conference about his involvement were inaccurate. The report did not conclude that Gonzales deliberately provided false information.

Gonzales testified 18 months before the IG reports that statements he made at the March 13, , press conference were misstatements and were overboard. 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. 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 , 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 to complain.

Senator Domenici ever requesting that Mr. Iglesias be removed. The investigative team also determined that the evidence did not warrant expanding the scope of the investigation beyond the removal of Iglesias. As such, Attorney General Gonzales threatened the Times with prosecution under the Espionage Act of , [ 93 ] 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 We have an obligation to enforce the law and to prosecute those who engage in criminal activity.

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. The objective of OPR is to ensure that DOJ attorneys perform their duties in accordance with the highest professional standards.

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, , 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 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. 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. In testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 15, , former Deputy Attorney General Comey was asked to recall the events of the evening of March 10, , when, at the behest of President Bush, [ ] [ ] Gonzales and Bush's then-chief-of-staff Andrew H.

Card Jr. 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.

In walked Mr. Gonzales, carrying an envelope, and Mr. 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.

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. 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, , hospital room visit, in a preview of his book "The Terror Presidency", which was to be published in Fall In the September 9, , 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.

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. 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.

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. 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. 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. Ashcroft talked about the legal issues in a lucid form, as I've heard him talk about legal issues in the White House. He appeared to contradict the earlier statements made by James Comey regarding the hospital room meeting with John Ashcroft.

Comey's testimony about the hospital visit was about other intelligence activities—disagreement over other intelligence activities. That's how we'd clarify it. Comey says; that is not what the people in the room say. 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.

Through his testimony before Congress on issues ranging from the Patriot Act to U. Attorney firings, he commonly admitted ignorance. 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.

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. Negroponte dated May 17, , which appeared to contradict Gonzales's testimony the previous day regarding the subject of a March 10, , emergency Congressional briefing that preceded his hospital room meeting with former attorney general John Ashcroft , James B.

The IG report is clear on p. 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, , in his own sworn testimony on that subject before the House Judiciary Committee. So would I be comfortable in saying that those were the items that were part of the discussion?

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. On July 26, , 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.

On Wednesday, June 27, , 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.

Court of Appeals Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings before the committee the previous year. Mueller III , because Gonzales had been constrained in what he could say because there was a danger he would divulge classified material. 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.

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 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. On Tuesday, August 28, —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.

Miers , the former White House counsel, and Karl Rove , who resigned in August as the president's top political aide. They still face contempt if they don't appear. He ordered full cooperation by all Department of Justice employees with ongoing investigations. 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, , 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. It has been reported that a person involved in the incident of March 10, , 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.

On July 31, , 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. Comey's advise [sic] that prompted the Gang of Eight meeting on March 10, , was not about TSP, but was about another or other aspects of the intelligence activities in question, which activities remain classified.

As Attorney General , Gonzalez led the Justice Department 's defense of the Partial Birth Abortion Act when it was challenged in court and for this reason the legal case bears his name. 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 as a result of one vote on a single case before the Texas Supreme Court, In re Jane Doe 5 43 Tex. In a series of cases before the Texas Supreme Court in , the court was asked to construe for the first time the 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.

Al gonzalez biography

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. Supreme Court precedents. 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. 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. Political commentators had suggested that Bush forecast the selection of Gonzales with his comments defending the Attorney General made on July 6, , 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. 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, , nominated Harriet Miers as associate justice, to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

On October 27, , 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, , U. 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.

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, But the President gave Gonzales a strong vote of confidence saying, "This is an honest, honorable man, in whom I have confidence. Separately, a White House spokeswoman said, "He's staying".

A similar resolution was introduced in the House by Rep. Adam Schiff D-CA. On June 11, , 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. No Democrat voted against the motion. Stevens R-AK voted "present.

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. In addition, several Republicans were critical of Gonzales, without calling for his resignation or firing:. On August 26, , Gonzales submitted his resignation as attorney general with an effective date of September 17, 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". 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, On September 12, , Gonzales endorsed Kamala Harris for president, calling Donald Trump "perhaps the most serious threat to the rule of law in a generation.

Terwiliger was on the Republican law team involved in Florida presidential election recount battle of Fine may recommend criminal charges against Gonzales. To the contrary, the Inspector General found no criminal wrongdoing and no perjury. On November 15, , 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.

On September 2, , the Inspector General found that Gonzales had stored classified documents in an insecure fashion, at his home and insufficiently secure safes at work. Some members of Congress criticized Gonzales for selectively declassifying some of this information for political purposes.