Gonzales

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The resignation of Alberto R. Gonzales marks the end the most dysfunctional and lawless epoch at the Justice Department since the days of John Mitchell, who authorized the Watergate burglary and then lied about it, stepping down as President Richard M. Nixon's attorney general in 1972. Like Mr. Mitchell, Mr. Gonzales has served his president as enabler-in-chief, earning his reputation as the most loyal member of the Cabinet as he lined up the Justice Department behind the White House's extralegal and unconstitutional maneuverings.

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department's inspector general acknowledged yesterday that he was examining whether outgoing Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales made false or misleading statements to Congress about the National Security Agency's terrorist surveillance program, the fired U.S. attorneys affair and other subjects. Responding to a congressional query, Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said that his office was investigating Gonzales' conduct as part of several ongoing probes into the activities of department lawyers on Gonzales' watch.

"Even my worst days as attorney general have been better than my father's best days." One doesn't want to begrudge Alberto R. Gonzales a brief, self-indulgent moment of mawkishness as he ignominiously departs the public stage. But one of his main problems was that mawkish self-indulgence was often his defining contribution to the public debate. To the bitter end, Mr. Gonzales remained the most self-involved attorney general in modern memory. (Full disclosure: My wife worked for him and his predecessor.

WASHINGTON -- Succumbing to months of criticism over his honesty and leadership, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales announced his resignation yesterday, giving President Bush an opportunity to set the Justice Department on a fresh course during the final 17 months of his administration. Gonzales had been weakened by scrutiny of his involvement in the firings of U.S. attorneys and his pursuit of a secretive warrantless wiretap program that has distressed defenders of civil liberties.

WASHINGTON -- They rode into town in 2001, bent on changing the capital and stamping it with George W. Bush's compassionate conservative brand. The influential circle of Texans surrounding the president was close to him personally and shared many of his defining characteristics, including fierce loyalty, devotion to secrecy and a stubborn reluctance to admit error. Now, those Texans are all but gone. The impending departure of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, two weeks after top White House aide Karl Rove resigned, reflects the waning of the Bush presidency, amid deep unpopularity at home and enormous problems overseas.

Alberto R. Gonzales has at last been hounded out of the attorney general's office, but President Bush's indignation at his exit in disgrace is misdirected at Democrats. Mr. Bush complained Mr. Gonzales' "good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons," but both men contributed mightily to the result. His longtime friend was thrust into a job he never understood and was ill-suited for. As the nation's top law enforcement officer, Mr. Gonzales continued to perform as the president's personal counsel, sacrificing independence and integrity to unwavering loyalty.

A politically weakened, lame duck president may not be able to bring competing forces together to shape new policies or lasting achievements, but he can stubbornly protect a stooge of an attorney general almost indefinitely. If consequences to his party are not a concern - nor the morale of a Justice Department widely viewed as dysfunctional - President Bush's refusal to fire the incompetent, prevaricating Alberto R. Gonzales serves Mr. Bush by drawing attention away from his own shortcomings.

WASHINGTON -- A 2004 dispute over the National Security Agency's secret surveillance program that led top Justice Department officials to threaten resignation involved computer searches through massive electronic databases, according to current and former government officials briefed on the program. It is not clear why the database searches, known as data mining, raised such a legal debate. But such databases, compiled by American companies and stored in the United States, contain records of the phone calls and e-mail messages of millions of Americans.

WASHINGTON -- The director of the FBI, Robert S. Mueller III, in testimony yesterday about a 2004 confrontation in which top Justice Department officials threatened to resign over a secret intelligence operation, offered an account that sharply conflicted with Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales' sworn statements about the standoff. Mueller told the House Judiciary Committee that the confrontation was about the National Security Agency's counterterrorism eavesdropping program, describing it as "an NSA program that has been much discussed."