Alberto Gonzales

Alberto Reynaldo Gonzales (born August 4, 1955) is an American lawyer who served as the 80th United States attorney general from 2005 to 2007. He was the highest-ranking Hispanic American in the executive government in American history until the appointment of Marco Rubio as Secretary of State in 2025. 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.

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. As of 2024, Gonzales is 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

Gonzales was born in San Antonio, Texas, to a Catholic family,

Support for use of torture

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 The memo concluded that certain provisions of GPW were outdated and ill-suited for dealing with captured Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters: "[The war against terrorism] is not the traditional clash between nations adhering to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."

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 to the CIA from Jay Bybee, the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, and an August 1, 2002, legal opinion 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, and that it was used to provide after-the-fact legal support for harsh interrogation techniques. 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. 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.

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." Many of the techniques were, until then, generally considered illegal. 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. For instance, the United States had prosecuted Japanese military officials after World War II and American soldiers after the Vietnam War for waterboarding. The approved techniques included striking a prisoner, exposure to extreme temperatures, stress positions, walling, sleep deprivation for up to 180 hours ( days), and the simulated drowning procedure known as "waterboarding". These secret memos superseded a previous, unclassified legal opinion that declared torture "abhorrent." 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.

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.

Objectivity

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. 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.

The president requested and Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006. 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.

As Robert Parry writes in the Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel:

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.S. Attorneys and issued a report in September 2008.

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.

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. 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.

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. 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. (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).

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT): "egregious lapses in judgment"
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA): "there must be accountability from the top down"
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL): "lost his credibility"

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"

Investigations

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.

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.

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. 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. Gonzalez also joined the Nashville law firm of Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, LLP as Of Counsel.

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. Additionally, he has written opinion pieces for The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and USA Today, covering issues ranging from immigration to sexual predators.

External links

Official biography from whitehouse.gov
A second biography from ABC News