Are We Ready to Forgive Alberto Gonzales?
The former attorney general and other members of the George W. Bush team now seem to be on the radar because of the current administration.
February 19, 2019 at 04:52 PM
7 minute read
Alberto Gonzales was not someone I had thought about in years until I noticed that he and Loretta Lynch were the co-keynote speakers at a recent Legalweek conference on technology sponsored by my company ALM.
At the time, I had several thoughts. First, what strange bedfellows: President George W. Bush's attorney general sitting down with his counterpart from the Obama administration. Second, what did these baby boomers with scant experience in tech (except maybe in surveillance) have to offer about the latest gizmo?
But more than anything else, I was intrigued that Gonzales, who resigned amid controversy, including accusations of perjury before Congress, was now a headliner at a legal event. His biography for the conference cited his historical role as the first Hispanic White House counsel and U.S. attorney general, but it didn't go into his contentious past. Yet, who can forget stories of his role in promoting “enhanced interrogation” or that hospital scene of his visit to Attorney General John Ashcroft in which he tried to get Ashcroft, while in intensive care, to sign a warrantless wiretapping order?
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