August 2003
The Texas Clemency Memos
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200307/berlowAs the legal counsel to Texas Governor George W. Bush, Alberto R. Gonzales—now the White House counsel, and widely regarded as a likely future Supreme Court nominee—prepared fifty-seven confidential death-penalty memoranda for Bush's review. Never before discussed publicly, the memoranda suggest that Gonzales repeatedly failed to apprise Bush of some of the most salient issues in the cases at hand.
On the morning of May 6, 1997, Governor George W. Bush signed his name to a confidential three-page memorandum from his legal counsel, Alberto R. Gonzales, and placed a bold black check mark next to a single word: DENY. It was the twenty-ninth time a death-row inmate's plea for clemency had been denied in the twenty-eight months since Bush had been sworn in. In this case Bush's signature led, shortly after 6:00 P.M. on the very same day, to the execution of Terry Washington, a mentally retarded thirty-three-year-old man with the communication skills of a seven-year-old.
Washington's death was barely noted by the media, and the governor's office issued no statement about it. But the execution and the three-page memo that sealed Washington's fate—along with dozens of similar memoranda prepared for Bush—speak volumes about the way the clemency process was approached both by Bush and by Gonzales, the man most often mentioned as the President's choice for the next available seat on the Supreme Court.
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White House counsel questioned in leak probe
Grand jury investigates outing of covert CIA operativeThe Associated Press
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5241413/June 18, 2004WASHINGTON - The White House’s top lawyer was questioned by a federal grand jury Friday in the criminal investigation of who in the Bush administration leaked the name of a covert CIA operative last year.
White House counsel Alberto Gonzales underwent questioning at the federal courthouse. He was the latest in a string of administration officials to be asked about the unauthorized disclosure of the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame, wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, to the news media.
“The president directed the White House to cooperate fully, and Judge Gonzales was just doing his part to cooperate,” said White House press secretary Scott McClellan, who also has gone before the grand jury.
Vice President Dick Cheney was recently questioned by investigators, and President Bush has indicated that he, too, expects to be questioned. Bush has consulted with a private attorney about the case, since the White House counsel can represent him only on official matters
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Abuse 'designed to humiliate'
by Michael Jansen, The Jordan Times
June 17th, 2004
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=5423President George Bush has repeatedly stated that military personnel dealing with Iraqis have been instructed to “stay within US law” and to abide by US “international treaty obligations”. However, on Aug. 1, 2002, his chief legal adviser, Alberto Gonzalez, who served on Bush's staff while he was governor of Texas, approved a memorandum which says otherwise. The memo argued that torturing Al Qaeda suspects held outside the US — at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba — “may be justified” and international conventions against torture “may be unconstitutional”. Since Gonzalez is Bush's senior legal adviser, the memo, which was passed onto the Justice Department, is seen as a binding document. The White House memo was the basis for a second, Pentagon, memo issued in March 2003 spelling out the rules for Iraq.
The White House memo argued that it is “within US law” to employ harsh treatment just short of causing “organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death”. The memo is wrong, although unlawful abuse and torture have been practised by the US for decades. A US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) handbook on methods of interrogation, issued 40 years ago during the Vietnam conflict and declassified a decade ago, includes precisely some of the techniques employed in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. CIA trainers not only employed these techniques but also taught them to interrogators from a variety of other countries where US-friendly governments faced opposition and unrest.
The fact that the US has used such techniques for many years does not mean that they are acceptable or legal, but simply that the US has been violating the rules of war, the Geneva Conventions, the convention outlawing the use of torture and US army regulations on the treatment of prisoners. All these instruments ban brutal, inhumane and humiliating treatment.
Nevertheless, Gonzalez' memo stated: “We conclude that the treaty's text prohibits only the most extreme acts by reserving criminal penalties solely for torture and declining to require such penalties for `cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment'.”
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Spotlight on Enron's law firm
David Lazarus
Friday, February 15, 2002
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/02/15/BU132842.DTLAlberto Gonzales enjoys a reputation for covering George W. Bush's back.
In 1996, for example, Gonzales, as Bush's general counsel, managed to get the then-Texas governor excused from jury duty, thus saving Bush from having to disclose a 1976 arrest for drunk driving.
Bush rewarded Gonzales' loyalty by subsequently appointing him Texas' secretary of state and then to a seat on the Texas Supreme Court. And today, Gonzales is still watching Bush's flank as White House counsel.
But before Gonzales became a permanent fixture of Team W, he was a partner at the powerful Houston law firm Vinson & Elkins, and that's something congressional investigators are apparently taking a closer look at.
Sources tell me that investigators are following up on tips that Vinson & Elkins may have briefed former partners in advance on the findings of a top- secret probe into Enron's shady business dealings.
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t r u t h o u t | Document
US Representitive, John Conyers, Jr.
Ranking Member House Committee on the Judiciary
Letter to:
The Honorable Larry D. Thompson
Deputy Attorney General
April 16, 2002
http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/04.17A.Conyers.Demands.htm1. President Bush has received nearly $2 million from Enron and its employees, making them the single largest contributor to Mr. Bush's political career. The fact that President Bush was so closely tied to former CEO Kenneth Lay as to refer to him as "Kenny Boy" only supports the contention that it will be difficult for a political appointee such as yourself to objectively pursue a case involving the President's closest friends and supporters.
2. President Bush received $145,650 from Arthur Andersen, making them the fifth largest contributor to the Bush/Cheney campaign.
3. President Bush's White House Counsel, Alberto Gonzalez, served as a former partner of one of Enron's principal outside legal counsel, Vinson & Elkins, which has also been tied to the Enron scandal.
I believe the far-reaching connections among the various entities has left an indelible stain on the Administration that can only be removed by the appointment of a special counsel. Bringing an individual into the matter from outside the government, having no allegiance to the Bush Administration, and who has, in the words of your own regulations, "a reputation for integrity and impartial decision-making, and with appropriate experience to ensure that the investigation will be conducted ably, expeditiously, and thoroughly" would instill greater public confidence in the overall integrity of the investigation.
I would be remiss, if I did not also add, Mr. Thompson, that I am disappointed by your own failure to respond to my earlier letters to you on these matters. As you are no doubt aware, on January 16, 2002, I wrote to you regarding a possible conflict of interest due to your past status as a partner of King & Spaulding, a law firm with extensive business ties to Enron; and on January 24, 2002, I wrote to you requesting that the Department appoint an outside special counsel to investigate Enron. I have also never received a response from my February 5, 2002 letter to Senior White House Advisor Karl Rove and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales concerning allegations that Mr. Rove improperly arranged for Ralph Reed to receive a consulting contract from Enron in order to mitigate the need to bring Mr. Reed on the Bush campaign payroll more directly. Needless to say, the Administration's failure to even respond to the queries of the Ranking Member on the House Judiciary Committee does not inspire confidence in their ability to manage this critical criminal investigation in a full and forthright manner.
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Dark Heart of the American Dream
Ed Vulliamy
The London Observer
Sunday 16 June 2002
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,11913,738196,00.htmlAlberto Gonzalez wrote a decision soon after his appointment to the Texas court which made it all but impossible for citizens to bring class actions. 'The result,' says Shawn Isbell, a lawyer working on environmental cases, 'is that it will simply be too expensive to bring cases against the corporations.'
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Texas Governor George W. Bush: An Inventory of General Counsel's Legal Opinions and Advice at the Texas State ...
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/tslac/40082/tsl-40082.html The General Counsel position within the Texas Office of the Governor was created in October 1973 when the Executive Director of the Governor's Criminal Justice Division appointed an individual as General Counsel, to assist him in providing statute interpretations and in other matters relating to policies and procedures. Today the Office of the General Counsel is a separate division in the Governor's Office. During the Bush Administration, Alberto Gonzales served as General Counsel, succeeded in 1998 by Margaret Wilson.
Duties of the General Counsel include providing statute interpretations; tracking inmates on death row as their cases move through the judicial process including all appeals to the governor for commutations or stays of execution; handling pardon requests sent to the governor; reviewing proposed settlements, land patents, grant requests, contracts, easements, and deeds for the governor; analyzing proposed legislation and regulations for validity and legal effect; assisting appointments staff in determining eligibility and other legal issues related to proposed appointments; handling extradition and requisition matters; coordinating ethics guidelines and training for the governor's office; advising the governor on federal programs administered by the state; coordinating the governor's criminal justice policy with the governor's Policy Director; and providing legal advice and handling litigation filed against the governor or the Governor's Office, in conjunction with actions of the Attorney General on the governor's behalf.
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