Alberto Gonzales
Alberto Reynaldo Gonzales is an American lawyer who served as the 80th United States Attorney General from 2005 to 2007 and was the highest-ranking Hispanic American in executive government in American history until the appointment of Marco Rubio as Secretary of State in 2025. He previously served as Secretary of State of Texas, as a Texas Supreme Court Justice, and as White House Counsel, becoming the first Hispanic to hold that office.
Gonzales's tenure as U.S. Attorney General was marked by controversy regarding warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens and the legal authorization of "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.
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, and raised in Humble, Texas, a town outside of Houston. Of Mexican descent, he was the second of eight children born to Maria and Pablo M. Gonzales. His father, who died in 1982, was a migrant worker and then a construction worker with a second grade education. His mother worked at home raising eight children and had a sixth grade education. Gonzales and his family of ten lived in a small, two-bedroom home built by his father and uncles with no telephone and no hot running water. According to Gonzales, he is unaware whether immigration documentation exists for three of his grandparents who were born in Mexico and may have entered and resided in the United States illegally.An honors student at MacArthur High School in unincorporated Harris County, Gonzales enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1973, for a four-year term of enlistment. He served one year at a remote radar site with 100 other GIs at Fort Yukon, Alaska. He was then released from active duty to attend the USAFA Prep School after which he received an appointment to the United States Air Force Academy. Prior to beginning his third year at the academy, which would have caused him to incur a further service obligation, he left the academy and was released from the enlistment contract. He transferred to Rice University in Houston, where he was a resident of Lovett College. He went on to be selected as the Charles Parkhill Scholar of Political Science and was awarded a bachelor's degree with honors in political science in 1979. He then earned a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1982.
Private life
Gonzales has been married twice: he and his first wife, Diane Clemens, divorced in 1985; he and his second wife, Rebecca Turner Gonzales, have three sons.Early career
Gonzales was an attorney in private practice from 1982 until 1994 with the Houston law firm Vinson and Elkins, where he became a partner—one of the first Hispanic partners in its history—and where he worked primarily with corporate clients. In 1994, he was named general counsel to then–Texas Governor George W. Bush, rising to become Secretary of State of Texas in 1997 and named to the Texas Supreme Court in 1999, both appointments made by Governor Bush. Gonzales won his election bid to remain on the court in the Republican primary in 2000, and was elected to a full six-year term on the State Supreme Court in the November 2000 general election.Recognition
Gonzales has been active in the community, serving as board director or committee member for several non-profit organizations between 1985 and 1994.In the legal sphere Gonzales provided pro bono legal services to the Host Committee for the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston, acted as a board director for the State Bar of Texas from 1991 to 1994, and was board trustee of the Texas Bar Foundation from 1996 to 1999. He has received numerous professional awards, including the Presidential Citation from the State Bar of Texas in 1997 in claimed recognition of his dedication to addressing basic legal needs of the indigent. In 1999, he was named Latino Lawyer of the Year by the Hispanic National Bar Association.
Between 2002 and 2003, Gonzales was recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus of Rice University and received the Harvard Law School Association Award, John Ben Shepperd Public Leadership Institute Outstanding Texas Leader Award, United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce President's Award, League of United Latin American Citizens President's Award, the Gary L. McPherson Distinguished Alumni Award from the American Council of Young Political Leaders, the Chairman's Leadership Award from the Texas Association of Mexican American Chamber of Commerce, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund's Truinfador Award, the Hispanic Hero Award from the Association for the Advancement of Mexican Americans, the Good Neighbor Award from the United States–Mexican Chamber of Commerce, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Travis County, Texas Republican Party. In 2004, Gonzales was given the Exemplary Leader Award by the Houston American Leadership Forum. In 2005 he was given the Hector Barreto, Sr. Award by the Latino Coalition and a President's Award by the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
As the son of former migrant workers, many believed Gonzales's appointment as Attorney General of the United States to be an example of the American dream. He was named Hispanic American of the Year by Hispanic magazine in 2005 and one of the 25 Most Influential Hispanics in America by Time magazine. Gonzales was inducted into the Class of 2005 in the American Academy of Achievement. Gonzales received the Distinguished Leadership Award in 2006 from Leadership Houston. In 2007, as he left government service, he was given the Director's Award from the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service.
On May 20, 2006, Houston Mayor Bill White proclaimed "Alberto R. Gonzales Day" in Houston in recognition of what was believed to be his contributions to the betterment of the City of Houston. Academic institutions have also recognized Gonzales's achievements. He received an Honorary Doctor of Laws in 2002 from The Catholic University of America; an Honorary Degree in Arts and Letters in 2003 from Miami-Dade Community College; an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws in 2005 from the University of the District of Columbia; an Honorary Degree in Associate of Arts in 2005 from the Houston Community College System; and an Honorary Alumnus Award in 2007 from Southern Methodist University.
Counsel to Governor Bush
As counsel to Governor Bush, Gonzales helped advise Bush in connection with jury duty when he was called in a 1996 Travis County drunk driving case. The case led to controversy during Bush's 2000 presidential campaign because Bush's answers to the potential juror questionnaire did not disclose Bush's own 1976 misdemeanor drunk driving conviction. Gonzales made no formal request for Bush to be excused from jury duty but raised a possible conflict of interest because as the Governor, Bush might be called upon to pardon the accused party. Gonzales's work in this case has been described as "canny lawyering".As Governor Bush's counsel in Texas, Gonzales also reviewed all clemency requests. A 2003 article in The Atlantic Monthly asserted that Gonzales gave insufficient counsel, and failed to second-guess convictions and failed appeals. Gonzales's deputy general counsel from 1995 to 1999, Pete Wassdorf, in turn sought to defend Gonzales from what he characterized as an inaccurate and incomplete picture of the clemency process under Bush. Under Section II, Article 4 of the Texas Constitution, the Governor cannot grant a pardon or commute a death sentence except with a majority vote recommendation of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, so Bush was constrained in granting clemency even if he had wanted to do so in a case. The fact remains that only one death sentence was overturned by Governor Bush, and the state of Texas executed more prisoners during Gonzales's term than any other state.
White House Counsel
As White House counsel, and later as attorney general, Gonzales served president George W. Bush through a period of escalating controversy over the legality of U.S. policies in the fight against terrorism. Gonzales approved the legal framework for the administration's anti-terrorism efforts and was a reliable advocate for White House policy. He supported positions that enlarged the power of the executive and diminished protections for interrogation subjects. These rulings were vocally challenged by many scholars and human-rights advocates and were partly overturned by the courts. He resigned following sharp criticism of his handling of the firing of nine U.S. attorneys and subsequent testimony during congressional hearings.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 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: " 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."
Gonzales later explained, "The old ways may not work here. That's what the memo was intended to convey to the President. I never meant to convey to the President that the basic values in the Geneva Convention were outdated." He noted that a British parliamentary committee visiting Guantánamo, while horrified by conditions at the base, had reached a similar conclusion when it said, "the Geneva Conventions are failing to provide necessary protection because they lack clarity and are out of date". He argued that existing military regulations and instructions from the President were more than adequate to ensure that the principles of the Geneva Convention would be applied. He also expressed a concern that undefined language in Common Article III of GPW, such as "outrages upon personal dignity" and "inhuman treatment" could make officials and military leaders subject to the War Crimes Act of 1996 if actions were deemed to constitute violations of the Act. Attorney General John Ashcroft made a similar argument on behalf of the Justice Department by letter to the President dated February 1, 2002, writing that a presidential determination "against treaty application would provide the highest assurance that no court would subsequently entertain charges that American military officers, intelligence officials or law enforcement officials violated Geneva Convention rules relating to field conduct, detention conduct or interrogation of detainees. The War Crimes Act of 1996 makes violations of parts of the Geneva Convention a crime in the United States."
Gonzalez oversaw President Bush's Office of Legal Counsel on August 1, 2002, at which time the OLC produced the Bybee memo, a document that provided the legal framework by which previous interpretations of the Geneva Convention and the United Nations Convention Against Torture were modified to expand Presidential authority to enable so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques".
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: " attention grasp, walling, facial hold, facial slap, cramped confinement, wall standing, stress positions, sleep deprivation, insects placed in a confinement box, and 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. As reported later, many of these interrogation techniques were previously considered illegal under U.S. and international law and treaties at the time of Abu Zubaydah's capture. For instance, the United States had prosecuted Japanese military officials after World War II and American soldiers after the Vietnam War for waterboarding. Since 1930, the United States had defined sleep deprivation as an illegal form of torture. Many other techniques developed by the CIA constitute inhuman and degrading treatment and torture under the United Nations Convention against Torture, and Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
In May 2005, three months after Gonzales became attorney general, Steven G. Bradbury of the Office of Legal Counsel issued a pair of classified opinions that, for the first time, provided Central Intelligence Agency explicit authorization to apply to terror suspects a variety of painful physical and psychological interrogation methods, either alone or in combination. The approved techniques included striking a prisoner, exposure to extreme temperatures, stress positions, walling, sleep deprivation for up to 180 hours, 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. Patrick Leahy and John Conyers, chairmen of the respective Senate and House Judiciary Committees, requested that the Justice Department turn over documents related to the classified 2005 legal opinions to their committees for review.
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. On January 22, 2009, President Obama signed an executive order requiring the CIA to use only the 19 interrogation methods outlined in the United States Army Field Manual on interrogations "unless the Attorney General with appropriate consultation provides further guidance." Bradbury's memoranda were publicly released by the Obama Administration on April 16, 2009.