Gonzales resigns as US attorney-general

Gonzales resigns as US attorney-general
By Andrew Ward in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: August 27 2007 15:03 | Last updated: August 27 2007 15:03


Alberto Gonzales, the US attorney-general, has resigned after months of pressure over his role in the Bush administration’s terrorist surveillance programme and a controversial purge of federal prosecutors.

Democrats had accused Mr Gonzales of firing attorneys at the behest of the White House and questioned the truthfulness of his testimony to Congress about the terrorist surveillance programme.

Mr Gonzales had resisted calls for his resignation for much of this year and President George W. Bush repeatedly expressed confidence in his longtime friend and ally.

Mr Gonzales’s decision to step down represents a political victory for the Democrats but will also come as a relief to the many Republicans who had turned against him.

His departure comes a fortnight after the resignation of Karl Rove, the White House political adviser, who was also a target of the investigation into the firing of several federal prosecutors last year.

Many Democrats believe that the prosecutors were fired to make room for individuals who would be more helpful to Republican interests.

Mr Gonzales and Mr Rove are the latest in a series of senior officials to leave the Bush administration since Donald Rumsfeld resigned as defence secretary after last November’s Republican defeat in the midterm elections.

There was no immediate word about who would replace Mr Gonzales but his successor is sure to face intense scrutiny from Congress.

Democrats are likely to use the confirmation process to extract more information about the controversies involving Mr Gonzales and to secure guarantees about how the Justice Department will be run in future.

Mr Gonzales was appointed attorney-general in 2005 after a four-year stint as White House legal counsel. He faced criticism in both roles for his attempts to expand presidential powers, including a series of controversial anti-terrorism measures.

He drafted the rules for military war tribunals and sought to limit the legal rights of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, drawing lawsuits from critics who said the Bush administration was violating the Constitution in its pursuit of terrorists.

Mr Gonzales was one of several Texan aides who accompanied Mr Bush to the White House in 2001, having served as general-counsel during Mr Bush’s days as governor of Texas. Most of those original aides have now left the administration.