Foto: US Department of Justice
Alberto R. Gonzales (born August 4, 1955) is an American lawyer who served as the 80th United States Attorney General from 2005 to 2007 and is the highest-ranking Hispanic American in executive government to date. 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. Gonzales is currently 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. He often writes opinion pieces for national newspapers and appears on national news programs.
Gonzales was born to a Catholic family in San Antonio, Texas, and raised in Humble, Texas, a town outside of Houston. Of Mexican descent, he was the second of eight children born to Maria (Rodriguez) 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.
Gonzales has been active in the community, serving as board director or committee member for several non-profit organizations between 1985 and 1994.
