page_title: Alberto Gonzales
section_title: Announcement
hierarchical_section_title: Alberto Gonzales / Resignation / Announcement
context_page_description: Alberto R. Gonzales is an American lawyer who served as the 80th United States Attorney General, appointed in February 2005 by President George W. Bush, becoming the highest-ranking Hispanic American in executive government to date. He was the first Hispanic to serve as White House Counsel. Earlier he had been Bush's General Counsel during his governorship of Texas. Gonzales had also served as Secretary of State of Texas and then as a Texas Supreme Court Justice.
  Gonzales's tenure as U.S. Attorney General was marked by controversy regarding warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens and the legal authorization of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques", later generally acknowledged as constituting torture, in the U.S. government's post-9/11 "War on Terror". Gonzales had also presided over the firings of several U.S. Attorneys who had refused back-channel White House directives to prosecute political enemies, allegedly causing the office of Attorney General to become improperly politicized. 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.
context_section_description: On August 26, 2007, Gonzales submitted his resignation as Attorney General with an effective date of September 17, 2007. In a statement on August 27, Gonzales thanked the President for the opportunity to be of service to his country, giving no indication of either the reasons for his resignation or his future plans. 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". Senators Schumer (D-NY), Feinstein (D-CA), and Specter (R-PA) replied that the resignation was entirely attributable to the excessive politicization of the Attorney General's office by Gonzales, whose credibility with Congress, they asserted, was nonexistent.
caption: Gonzales and his wife Rebecca, with George W. Bush and Laura Bush at the Prairie Chapel Ranch on August 26, 2007, the day that Gonzales's resignation was accepted.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "President George W. Bush and Mrs. Laura Bush sit with U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his wife, Rebecca, during a visit Sunday, Aug. 26, 2007, at the Bush Ranch in Crawford, Texas. The Attorney General's resignation was announced Monday morning. In a statement, the President said, \"Al Gonzales is a man of integrity, decency and principle. And I have reluctantly accepted his resignation, with great appreciation for the service that he has provided for our country.\" White House photo by Chris Greenberg", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "200", "Image YResolution": "200", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2007:08:27 14:11:16", "Image Artist": "Chris Greenberg", "Image ExifOffset": "776", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1114", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6205", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/125", "EXIF FNumber": "9/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1000", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:08:26 13:39:58", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "870723/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "86797/20000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "34", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2000", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1333"}