Ashcroft and Evans resign from Cabinet
WASHINGTON -- Attorney General John Ashcroft and Commerce Secretary Don Evans resigned from President Bush's Cabinet yesterday in the first shake-up of his administration as it heads toward its second four years in power.
The resignation of Ashcroft, a lightning rod for critics of the administration's domestic antiterrorism policies, was widely expected within conservative legal circles following Bush's victory in the presidential election last week. By contrast, the announcement by Evans that he would be leaving Washington was not anticipated. He is one of Bush's closest personal friends, and some said a possible candidate for another Cabinet post.
As the nation's top federal law enforcement official, Ashcroft, 62, took a leading role in shaping the Bush administration's response to the Al Qaeda attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. His legacy includes helping craft and implement the USA Patriot Act, tightening the enforcement of immigration laws, and overseeing changes at the FBI to bolster its counterterrorism role in greater partnership with intelligence agencies.
But Ashcroft became a symbol to Democrats and civil liberties groups who contended that the administration was going too far in strengthening police powers at the cost of individual privacy and freedom after the terrorist attacks.
During the presidential campaign, Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts made ''End the era of John Ashcroft" a regular stump speech applause line.
His critics lambasted Ashcroft for not apologizing after an inspector general reported the abuse of hundreds of Muslims swept up on immigrations charges after the attacks, none of whom were charged with terrorism. They denounced his role in supporting the administration's asserted power that the military could hold a US citizen without charges or access to a lawyer as an ''enemy combatant."
In a five-page handwritten resignation letter dated Nov. 2, Ashcroft said that ''the demands of justice are both rewarding and depleting" and that the Justice Department would be well served ''by new leadership and fresh inspiration." He also said with pride that ''Americans have been spared the violence and savagery of terrorist attacks on our soil since September 11, 2001."
Accepting Ashcroft's resignation, Bush credited him with working ''tirelessly to help make our country safer" and applauded his efforts to crack down on crime and fight Internet pornography, adding, ''John has served our nation with honor, distinction, and integrity."
But Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Globe in an interview that history would judge Ashcroft to have been among ''the worst attorneys general in American history."
''Mr. Ashcroft has been one of the most divisive forces in the entire Bush administration," Romero said. ''His legacy is having shown open hostility to the protection of civil liberties and even outright disdain for those who dared question him."
Ralph G. Neas, president of the liberal civil rights watchdog People for the American Way, issued a statement with a similar tone, calling Ashcroft ''one of the most destructive attorneys general in the modern era [whose] tenure was marked by a severe erosion of Americans' constitutional liberties and a diminished commitment to civil rights enforcement."
David Rivkin, who served Bush's father as associate White House counsel, praised Ashcroft as doing what needed to be done after the Sept. 11 attacks, even though it was a ''thankless job" that doomed him to inevitable criticism. He allowed, however, that Ashcroft received greater criticism because ''he didn't make much effort to court the media or critics" and because he was known as a man of devout Christian faith.
''Anybody in his shoes doing what had to be done would have been criticized," Rivkin said. ''If you put the smoothest, most polished individual with the best people skills and best diplomatic skills, he still probably would have been unpopular, but perhaps less so than Ashcroft. But it's not fair. I think he's done about as well as anyone would have done."
Among the potential replacements for Ashcroft is his former deputy, Larry Thompson. Thompson, who would be the nation's first African-American attorney general, currently serves as general counsel at
Ashcroft drew derision from nearly the beginning of his tenure, when Bush nominated him after he lost his Senate reelection campaign in Missouri to Democrat Mel Carnahan even though the governor had died in a helicopter crash shortly before the election.
Ashcroft's confirmation was unusually contentious for a Senate colleague. Early in his tenure, the Justice Department paid $8,000 for cloth drapes to cover a partially nude statue behind a podium, reportedly because Ashcroft did not like being photographed in front of a depiction of a woman's breast.
Ashcroft sent his letter of resignation on Election Day, though the White House did not make that known until yesterday, when Bush formally accepted it.
Administration officials said Ashcroft left of his own accord, though he was increasingly viewed as a liability in some White House circles.
In April, President Bush rebuked Ashcroft for declassifying Justice Department memos from the Clinton era showing deliberations involving Jamie Gorelick, the number two Justice official under Clinton who later was named to the Sept. 11 Commission, over how the CIA and FBI could share terrorism information.
Facing tough questions from the commission over the FBI's failure to detect the Sept. 11 terrorist cells and because a former aide said the attorney general told him prior to the attacks not to brief him about Al Qaeda threats anymore, Ashcroft brandished the Gorelick memo in his commission testimony while blaming Clinton-era policies for the failure to prevent the attacks.
In a rare show of public displeasure, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said at the time that the president was ''disappointed" that the document was released, and made it clear that the decision was made by Ashcroft's Justice Department, not the White House.
In contrast, Evans is Bush's closest friend in the Cabinet and was a grade-school classmate of Laura Bush. Evans, 58, and the president have ties going back 30 years, and he helped Bush during his two gubernatorial runs in Texas before serving as chairman of his 2000 presidential run.
Tripp Baird of the conservative Heritage Foundation said Evans's most important role occurred in promoting Bush's first major tax-cut package on Capitol Hill and in the media after former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill, whom Bush later fired, allegedly did not try hard enough to sell it.
In accepting Evans's resignation, the president credited him with being a key member of an economic team that has sought to lower taxes and create a level playing field with US trading partners.
''Don Evans is one of my most trusted friends and advisers," Bush said in a statement. ''He has worked steadfastly to make sure America continues to be the best place in the world to do business."
In his resignation letter, Evans said, ''I have concluded with deep regret that it is time for me to return home."
Other members of the Cabinet are rumored to be ready to leave as Bush begins his second term, among them Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta.
Globe reporter Rick Klein contributed to this report.
