Alberto Gonzales

Alberto R. Gonzales was born in San Antonio in 1955 and raised in Houston as one of eight children in a Mexican American family. He served in the U.S. Air Force, attended the Air Force Academy, graduated from Rice University in 1979 and Harvard Law School in 1982, then spent thirteen years at Houston's Vinson & Elkins. In 1995 he became counsel to Governor George W. Bush, followed by service as Texas secretary of state and as a justice of the Supreme Court of Texas. Bush brought Gonzales to Washington as White House counsel in 2001.

Gonzales became the 80th U.S. attorney general in February 2005 and the first Hispanic person to hold the office. He resigned in September 2007 after a tenure dominated late by disputes over the removal of U.S. attorneys and national-security legal policy. A 2008 joint DOJ inspector-general/professional-responsibility investigation concluded that Gonzales and other senior leaders failed to adequately supervise the U.S. attorney removal process and that public explanations were inaccurate or misleading in important respects. A separate OIG investigation concluded that Gonzales mishandled highly classified materials and violated departmental security requirements and procedures. These official findings are central to an accurate account of the same career that produced a major representation milestone.

Gonzales's rise from a Houston household built by his father and uncles to the nation's highest law-enforcement office remains a significant Mexican American representation milestone. His earlier Texas career also linked a private Houston practice, the governor's office, statewide administration and the state's highest court.

The milestone does not erase the management record documented by the Justice Department's own oversight offices. The U.S. attorney investigation assigned primary responsibility for serious supervisory failures to Gonzales and the deputy attorney general, while the classified-material investigation found violations of department security procedures. A useful profile must keep achievement and institutional accountability in the same frame.