A Reflection On Ashcroft's Term As Attorney General
Eric Lichtblau, The New York Times, 10 Nov. 2004
John Ashcroft was flying in a Cessna jet over Detroit on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when he received word that the Twin Towers had been hit. Scribbling notes on the back of a speech that he was supposed to give that day, he turned to an aide and declared, ''Our world has changed forever.''
Indeed, the terrorist attacks and Mr. Ashcroft's unexpected role as point man in carrying out the administration's antiterror policies would make him one of the most powerful and divisive figures ever to serve as the nation's top law enforcement official.
To his supporters, Mr. Ashcroft was an aggressive and unapologetic warrior against terrorism, unflinching in his efforts to remake the Justice Department in order to avoid a repetition of the Sept. 11 attacks. President Bush, in announcing Mr. Ashcroft's resignation as attorney general Tuesday, said he had ''worked tirelessly to help make our country safer.''
To his many critics, however, Mr. Ashcroft was a symbol of excesses of the antiterror campaign, a man engaged in overzealous prosecutions and insensitive to civil liberties. He became an applause line in John Kerry's stump speeches.
Mr. Ashcroft himself set the tone for the division less than three months after the attacks when he said before a Senate panel: ''To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve.''
In his four years at the helm of the Justice Department, Mr. Ashcroft left his mark by promoting a variety of conservative causes. He overruled prosecutors to push for more aggressive use of the death penalty, expanded prosecutions for Internet pornography, advocated a broader interpretation of gun ownership rights and subpoenaed the medical records of abortion providers.
But it is his legacy in the fight against terrorism that is sure to be dissected by historians for generations.
Mr. Ashcroft was an unlikely leader in that arena. He was nominated to be attorney general only after losing re-election to the Senate four years ago in a Missouri race in which his Democratic opponent, Gov. Mel Carnahan, was killed in a plane crash but won nonetheless. Mr. Carnahan's widow, Jean, was then appointed to the seat by the state's Democratic governor.
Mr. Ashcroft's selection by Mr. Bush, followed by a bruising confirmation battle in the Senate, was regarded as a plum for the president's conservative religious base.
In his first months as attorney general, some officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation accused him of being inattentive to concerns about the threat of terrorism, but the Sept. 11 attacks appeared to energize a Justice Department leadership struggling to find its way.
Mr. Ashcroft successfully pushed for Congress to approve the wide-ranging antiterrorism USA Patriot Act just weeks after Sept. 11, and he urged adoption of even stronger law enforcement tools in an effort to overcome what he regarded as bureaucratic hindrances in tracking and detecting terrorist plots.
He also frequently went on television to announce the disruption of terrorist ''sleeper cells'' in the United States and to issue terror warnings.
But terrorism prosecutions in Detroit and elsewhere would crumble or come under withering criticism, and a report from the Justice Department's own inspector general objected to the department's prolonged detention -- and occasional physical abuse -- of hundreds of illegal immigrants with no clear ties to terrorism who were arrested in the period after the attacks.
Moreover, the Justice Department's stance on the treatment of detainees and the jailing of ''enemy combatants'' drew criticism from both sides of the ideological spectrum, with the Supreme Court declaring earlier this year that ''a state of war is not a blank check for the president.''
Juleanna Glover Weiss, who served as a senior aide to Mr. Ashcroft in the Senate and in his short-lived presidential run in 1999, acknowledged in an interview Tuesday that he had become a lightning rod in the debate over balancing national security and civil liberties.
''Ashcroft took the most heat of anyone in the Bush cabinet,'' she said. ''But he did it with fortitude and grace, and above all else he protected Americans during one of our most truly trying times.''
John Ashcroft was flying in a Cessna jet over Detroit on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when he received word that the Twin Towers had been hit. Scribbling notes on the back of a speech that he was supposed to give that day, he turned to an aide and declared, ''Our world has changed forever.''
Indeed, the terrorist attacks and Mr. Ashcroft's unexpected role as point man in carrying out the administration's antiterror policies would make him one of the most powerful and divisive figures ever to serve as the nation's top law enforcement official.
To his supporters, Mr. Ashcroft was an aggressive and unapologetic warrior against terrorism, unflinching in his efforts to remake the Justice Department in order to avoid a repetition of the Sept. 11 attacks. President Bush, in announcing Mr. Ashcroft's resignation as attorney general Tuesday, said he had ''worked tirelessly to help make our country safer.''
To his many critics, however, Mr. Ashcroft was a symbol of excesses of the antiterror campaign, a man engaged in overzealous prosecutions and insensitive to civil liberties. He became an applause line in John Kerry's stump speeches.
Mr. Ashcroft himself set the tone for the division less than three months after the attacks when he said before a Senate panel: ''To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve.''
In his four years at the helm of the Justice Department, Mr. Ashcroft left his mark by promoting a variety of conservative causes. He overruled prosecutors to push for more aggressive use of the death penalty, expanded prosecutions for Internet pornography, advocated a broader interpretation of gun ownership rights and subpoenaed the medical records of abortion providers.
But it is his legacy in the fight against terrorism that is sure to be dissected by historians for generations.
Mr. Ashcroft was an unlikely leader in that arena. He was nominated to be attorney general only after losing re-election to the Senate four years ago in a Missouri race in which his Democratic opponent, Gov. Mel Carnahan, was killed in a plane crash but won nonetheless. Mr. Carnahan's widow, Jean, was then appointed to the seat by the state's Democratic governor.
Mr. Ashcroft's selection by Mr. Bush, followed by a bruising confirmation battle in the Senate, was regarded as a plum for the president's conservative religious base.
In his first months as attorney general, some officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation accused him of being inattentive to concerns about the threat of terrorism, but the Sept. 11 attacks appeared to energize a Justice Department leadership struggling to find its way.
Mr. Ashcroft successfully pushed for Congress to approve the wide-ranging antiterrorism USA Patriot Act just weeks after Sept. 11, and he urged adoption of even stronger law enforcement tools in an effort to overcome what he regarded as bureaucratic hindrances in tracking and detecting terrorist plots.
He also frequently went on television to announce the disruption of terrorist ''sleeper cells'' in the United States and to issue terror warnings.
But terrorism prosecutions in Detroit and elsewhere would crumble or come under withering criticism, and a report from the Justice Department's own inspector general objected to the department's prolonged detention -- and occasional physical abuse -- of hundreds of illegal immigrants with no clear ties to terrorism who were arrested in the period after the attacks.
Moreover, the Justice Department's stance on the treatment of detainees and the jailing of ''enemy combatants'' drew criticism from both sides of the ideological spectrum, with the Supreme Court declaring earlier this year that ''a state of war is not a blank check for the president.''
Juleanna Glover Weiss, who served as a senior aide to Mr. Ashcroft in the Senate and in his short-lived presidential run in 1999, acknowledged in an interview Tuesday that he had become a lightning rod in the debate over balancing national security and civil liberties.
''Ashcroft took the most heat of anyone in the Bush cabinet,'' she said. ''But he did it with fortitude and grace, and above all else he protected Americans during one of our most truly trying times.''