A General Rebellion
Alberto Gonzales has big troubles, but it isn't the current flap that has made him such a controversial figure
Even Republicans, though, had to concede the dismissals were botched badly. So badly that even Bush was hard pressed to support his attorney general last week after sworn testimony from Gonzales's former chief of staff Kyle Sampson—testimony that roundly contradicted Gonzales's version of events. "I'm going to have to let the attorney general speak for himself," Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino said after Sampson's testimony.
By week's end, many justice-watchers predicted that Gonzales and the No. 2 at the department, Paul McNulty, would have to go. "Morale is shattered, and public confidence in the department gets lower every day," said former justice spokesman Mark Corallo. "Somebody has to stop the hemorrhaging."
Gonzales's self-inflicted wound has saddened even critics, who may disagree with his policies and performance but generally praise him as a gentle and decent human being. A humble man who was raised in Humble, Texas, Gonzales was strongly influenced by the sacrifices his immigrant parents made to raise their eight children and by his late father's pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps outlook. Gonzales worked his way through Harvard Law School and became a partner at a prestigious Houston law firm after turning down an offer to join President George H. W. Bush's administration.
But in 1995, when the younger Bush, then Texas governor, came calling, Gonzales couldn't refuse and became Bush's general counsel. Despite Gonzales's relative inexperience, Bush quickly named him secretary of state, then Texas Supreme Court judge, and ultimately White House counsel, when Bush became president.
Grateful. Bush has referred to his friend as "mi abogado"—my lawyer. Indeed, if Gonzales's life were to be made into a movie, it could well be called All the President's Man. "He was someone who was always very grateful to Bush," says Texas attorney Douglas Alexander, "for basically putting him on a fast track."
But Gonzales's critics say he has paid a steep price. He had little experience in national security but after 9/11 was smack dab in the middle of the biggest national security crisis in modern American history.
Some praise his performance during those desperate hours. "Judge Gonzales had a level head and a cool hand," says Francisco. But others say Gonzales was intellectually co-opted by a small group of advisers who rendered him a silent coconspirator in their efforts to craft controversial policies based on their aggressive interpretation of presidential power. Among those advisers: Gonzales's deputies Timothy Flanigan and David Leitch; the Pentagon's general counsel, William Haynes; Justice Department official John Yoo; and David Addington, then special counsel—and now chief of staff—to Vice President Dick Cheney.
"[Gonzales] really did become captured by that small group of people," says one administration official. "He allowed himself to be manipulated and didn't include other agencies in the process, such as the State Department, the military, and the National Security Council."
For instance, it's been widely reported that Addington and Flanigan overruled a recommendation by then NSC adviser John Bellinger to conduct a review of the Guantánamo detainees because Bellinger and many military officers had concluded that not all of them were terrorists. Gonzales, sources say, listened to Bellinger's concerns but remained silent.
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