United States Attorney General
In December 2000, following his Senatorial defeat, Ashcroft was chosen for the position of U.S. attorney general by president-elect George W. Bush. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate by a vote of 58 to 42, with most Democratic senators voting against him, citing his prior opposition to using busing to achieve school desegregation and opposition to abortion. At the time of his appointment, he was known to be a member of the Federalist Society.
Before beginning his terms as Governor and Senator, Ashcroft had his father anoint him with oil to mirror the biblical practice for recognizing kings. As his father died by 2001, Ashcroft had U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, his former co-worker in the Attorney General Office of Missouri, perform this anointment and administer his oath of office.
In May 2001, the FBI revealed that they had misplaced thousands of documents related to the investigation of the Oklahoma City bombing. Ashcroft granted a 30-day stay of execution for Timothy McVeigh, the perpetrator of the bombing.
In July 2001, Ashcroft began flying exclusively by private jet. When questioned about this decision, the Justice Department explained that this course of action had been recommended based on a "threat assessment" made by the FBI. Neither the Bureau, nor the Justice Department would identify the specific nature of the threat, who made it, or when it happened. The CIA were unaware of any specific threats against Cabinet members. At the time, Ashcroft was the only Cabinet appointee who traveled on a private jet, excluding the special cases of Interior and Energy who have responsibilities which require chartered jets.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, Ashcroft was a key administration supporter of passage of the USA PATRIOT Act. One of its provisions, Section 215, allows the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to apply for an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to require production of "any tangible thing" for an investigation. This provision was criticized by citizen and professional groups concerned about violations of privacy. Ashcroft referred to the American Library Association's opposition to Section 215 as "hysteria" in two separate speeches given in September 2003. While Attorney General, Ashcroft consistently denied that the FBI or any other law enforcement agency had used the Patriot Act to obtain library circulation records or those of retail sales. According to the sworn testimony of two FBI agents interviewed by the 9/11 Commission, he ignored warnings of an imminent al-Qaida attack.
In January 2002, the partially nude female statue of the Spirit of Justice in the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building, where Ashcroft held press conferences, was covered with blue curtains. Department officials long insisted that the curtains were put up to improve the room's use as a television backdrop and that Ashcroft had nothing to do with it. Ashcroft's successor, Alberto Gonzales, removed the curtains in June 2005. Ashcroft also held daily prayer meetings.
In July 2002, Ashcroft proposed the creation of Operation TIPS, a domestic program in which workers and government employees would inform law enforcement agencies about suspicious behavior they encounter while performing their duties. The program was widely criticized from the beginning, with critics deriding the program as essentially a domestic informant network along the lines of the East German Stasi or the Soviet KGB, and an encroachment upon the First and Fourth amendments. The United States Postal Service refused to be a party to it. Ashcroft defended the program as a necessary component of the ongoing war on terrorism, but the proposal was eventually abandoned.
Ashcroft proposed a draft of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, legislation to expand the powers of the U.S. government to fight crime and terrorism, while simultaneously eliminating or curtailing judicial review of these powers for incidents related to domestic terrorism. The bill was leaked and posted to the Internet on February 7, 2003.
On May 26, 2004, Ashcroft held a news conference at which he said that intelligence from multiple sources indicated that the terrorist organization, al Qaeda, intended to attack the United States in the coming months. Critics suggested he was trying to distract attention from a drop in the approval ratings of President Bush, who was campaigning for re-election.
Groups supporting individual gun ownership praised Ashcroft's support through DOJ for the Second Amendment. He said specifically, "the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms," expressing the position that the Second Amendment protects an individual right, unrelated to militia service.
In March 2004, the Justice Department under Ashcroft ruled President Bush's domestic intelligence program illegal. Shortly afterward, Ashcroft was hospitalized with acute gallstone pancreatitis. White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andrew Card Jr. went to Ashcroft's bedside in the hospital intensive-care unit, to persuade the incapacitated Ashcroft to sign a document to reauthorize the program. Acting Attorney General James Comey alerted FBI Director Robert Mueller III of this plan, and rushed to the hospital, arriving ahead of Gonzales and Card Jr. Ashcroft, "summoning the strength to lift his head and speak", refused to sign. Attempts to reauthorize the program were ended by President Bush when Ashcroft, Comey and Mueller threatened to resign.
Following accounts of the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq, one of the torture memos was leaked to the press in June 2004. Jack Goldsmith, then head of the Office of Legal Counsel, had already withdrawn the Yoo memos and advised agencies not to rely on them. After Goldsmith chose to resign because of his objections, Ashcroft issued a one paragraph opinion re-authorizing the use of torture.
Ashcroft pushed his U.S. attorneys to pursue voter fraud cases. However, the U.S. attorneys struggled to find any deliberate voter fraud schemes, only finding individuals who made mistakes on forms or misunderstood whether they were eligible to vote.
Following George W. Bush's re-election, Ashcroft resigned, which took effect on February 3, 2005, after the Senate confirmed White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales as the next attorney general. Ashcroft said in his hand-written resignation letter, dated November 2, "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved."
