| May 16, 2007 | - James B. Comey, deputy for former attorney general John Ashcroft, testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that on March 10, 2004, Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card had attempted to persuade Ashcroft (who was hospitalized and had temporarily given up his authority as attorney general to Comey) to reauthorize the Bush Administration's domestic surveillance program, even though the Justice Department had just determined that the program was illegal; Ashcroft, Comey said, refused.
| Source:
The Washington Post
|
| February 20, 2005 | - Secret tapes made of George W. Bush between 1998 and 2000 indicated that Bush once considered John Ashcroft for Vice President and that he most likely smoked marijuana in the past.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| November 10, 2004 | -
President Bush nominated Alberto R. Gonzales to replace Ashcroft.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| November 9, 2004 | - Commerce Secretary Donald Evans and Attorney General John Ashcroft resigned.
| Source:
MSNBC
|
| November 9, 2004 | - “Corporate integrity has been restored,” Ashcroft wrote to the President. “The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved.”
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| September 30, 2004 | - A federal judge struck down a provision of the USA Patriot Act that permitted the FBI to carry out secret searches of Internet and telephone records but prevented companies from revealing that the searches had taken place. John Ashcroft said that the act is "completely consistent with the United States Constitution."
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| June 15, 2004 | - Attorney General John Ashcroft, perhaps worried about his recent bad press, announced that the FBI has a new terrorist in custody, a Somali man who was arrested in November, and said that he planned to blow up a shopping mall in Ohio. The purported terrorist was linked to another purported terrorist who allegedly planned to cut the cables on the Brooklyn Bridge.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 9, 2004 | - Attorney General John Ashcroft denied that the president authorized the use of torture on suspected terrorists, he refused to give Congress several memorandums by Justice Department lawyers laying out ways that interrogators could evade anti-torture laws.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| May 28, 2004 | - Attorney General John Ashcroft asked the American public for help finding terrorists who he said are planning to "to hit the United States hard"; a number of officials criticized the announcement and said that the government had no new information about terror threats.
| Source:
Sacramento Bee, New York Times
|
| March 8, 2004 | - Attorney General John Ashcroft was hospitalized with gallstone pancreatitis.
| Source:
CNN
|
| February 13, 2004 | - Attorney General John Ashcroft defended issuing subpoenas for abortion records and said that the records were necessary to find out whether doctors who have sued to overturn the ban on so-called partial-birth abortions are telling the truth when they say they have performed the procedure out of medical necessity.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| January 26, 2004 | - Attorney General John Ashcroft said that Saddam Hussein's use of "evil chemistry" and "evil biology" justified the war.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| January 11, 2004 | -
President George W. Bush nominated Michael Chertoff, a former aide to John Ashcroft and former Senate Republican counsel for the Whitewater investigation, to head the Department of Homeland Security.
| Source 1:
PBS
Source 2:
New York Timesimes
|
| December 30, 2003 | - Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the Justice Department investigation of the White House's
exposure of an undercover CIA agent, and a special counsel was named to oversee the inquiry.
| Source:
UPI
|
| September 25, 2003 | - Attorney General John Ashcroft instructed federal prosecutors to stop making plea bargains and go for the "most serious, readily provable offense."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 19, 2003 | - Attorney General John Ashcroft said that no requests for library records had yet been made.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 16, 2003 | - Attorney General John Ashcroft mocked librarians for their opposition to provisions of the USA Patriot Act that permit federal agents to seize citizens' library records; Ashcroft said that the librarians were indulging in "baseless hysteria" and wondered why the FBI would care "how far you have gotten on the latest Tom Clancy novel." He did not make clear why the government needs access to library records, however.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 10, 2003 | - Attorney General John Ashcroft gave a speech at Federal Hall in lower Manhattan and said that critics of the USA Patriot Act "have forgotten how we felt" on 9/11.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 19, 2003 | - Attorney General John Ashcroft was on the road giving speeches in defense of the USA Patriot Act.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 20, 2003 | - Attorney General John Ashcroft asked journalists to help convince the American people that the U.S.A.
Patriot Act, the antiterrorism law that gave sweeping new powers to federal law enforcement agencies, is really a good thing.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| May 2, 2003 | - The Bush Administration proposed giving the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon the power to issue "administrative subpoenas" for personal and financial information on American citizens without court approval.
Attorney General John Ashcroft revealed that the Justice Department used secret warrants 1,228 times last year.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| November 26, 2002 | -
“This is a giant step forward,” said Attorney General John Ashcroft.
| |
| October 8, 2002 | -
“I am an enemy of your country.” Attorney General John Ashcroft claimed to have “neutralized a suspected terrorist cell within our borders” with the arrest of four people in Portland, Oregon, who were accused of taking part in “physical training” and attempting to visit Afghanistan.
| |
| August 27, 2002 | -
A former U.S. Army scientist publicly identified as a “person of interest” in the FBI's anthrax investigation filed ethics complaints against Attorney General John Ashcroft and others, claiming they violated Justice Department regulations by leaking inflammatory information about him.
| |
| July 23, 2002 | -
John Walker Lindh, the 21-year-old American who was captured in Afghanistan, pleaded guilty to joining the Taliban and to carrying weapons.
Attorney General John Ashcroft pointed out that “He will now spend the next twenty years in prison, nearly as long as he has been alive.”
| |
| July 16, 2002 | -
Attorney General John Ashcroft warned Congress that Al Qaeda has a “hidden but active presence in the United States” and that restrictions on law-enforcement agencies must consequently be loosened even further.
| |
| June 25, 2002 | -
Attorney General John Ashcroft petitioned the Supreme Court to permit the federal government to hold secret deportation hearings, a policy that has been rejected by a judge in New Jersey, where an unknown number of people are being held for unknown reasons.
| |
| June 18, 2002 | -
Bush Administration officials were reportedly annoyed with Attorney General John Ashcroft for overstating the “dirty bomb” angle in the arrest of Jose Padilla, who was demoted from “potential bomber” to “scout” in a matter of days.
President Bush said that Padilla was “a bad guy and he is where he needs to be—detained.” Justice Department officials said that they decided to hold Padilla as an “enemy combatant,” because they don't have enough evidence to charge him with an actual crime, but said they would not try him before a military tribunal, because he is an American citizen. One official remarked that “he's going to stay in the can until we're through with Al Qaeda.”
| |
| June 11, 2002 | -
Attorney General John Ashcroft claimed that federal authorities had prevented a terrorist attack on Washington, D.C.; Ashcroft said that the arrest last month of an American Al Qaeda operative named Abdullah Al Mujahir at Chicago O'Hare airport had disrupted “an unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States with a radioactive dirty bomb.” An unnamed official admitted, however, that Mujahir, whose real name is Jose Padilla, did not actually possess such a bomb: “We don't believe it went beyond the planning stages.” The attorney general also proposed regulations requiring 100,000 Muslim and Middle Eastern foreigners to register with the federal government and submit to fingerprinting; potential terrorists who are already in the country are expected to comply voluntarily.
| |
| June 4, 2002 | -
Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that the F.B.I. is changing its internal guidelines and now would be permitted to carry out surveillance on domestic political and religious groups in situations where no specific criminal conduct is suspected.
| |
| March 26, 2002 | -
Attorney General John Ashcroft announced plans to interview 3,000 Middle Eastern men who have entered the country since September 11, pointing to the success of a controversial first round of talks last fall with Middle Eastern men residing in the United States.
| |
| February 5, 2002 | -
Doctors removed lesions from the left ear of John Ashcroft, the attorney general.
| |
| January 29, 2002 | -
Attorney General John Ashcroft, offended at being repeatedly photographed in the Justice Department's Great Hall with a large naked breast near his head, covered two partially nude Art Deco statues, the Spirit of Justice and the Majesty of Justice, with drapes.
| |
| January 22, 2002 | -
Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that John Walker will face terrorism charges in a federal court, not a military tribunal, for joining the Taliban.
| |
| January 15, 2002 | -
The United States Department of Justice appointed a special criminal task force to investigate the collapse of Enron, the Texas oil company.
Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the investigation, as did the entire United States Attorney's office in Houston, because of conflicts of interest.
| |
| December 11, 2001 | - Attorney General John Ashcroft testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which had summoned him to explain his dubious anti-terrorism tactics. “To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty,” he said, “my message is this: your tactics only aid terrorists.” He also accused his critics of giving “ammunition to America's enemies.” The attorney general went on to defend his refusal to compromise the right of potential terrorists to keep and bear arms.
| |
| December 11, 2001 | - Clayton Lee Waagner, who was arrested for mailing hundreds of anthrax hoax letters to abortion clinics, said he had nothing against John Ashcroft: “I understand he's anti-abortion also. He's a good man.”
| |
| December 4, 2001 | - Attorney General John Ashcroft said he wanted to rewrite the FBI's guidelines to allow the agency to spy on domestic political and religious groups; the rules in question were imposed in the 1970s because of significant civil-rights abuses that occurred under the J. Edgar Hoover regime.
| |
| November 13, 2001 | - Attorney General John Ashcroft approved a new emergency policy that will allow the government to monitor conversations between federal prisoners and their lawyers and to read such mail.
| |
| November 6, 2001 | - After the CIA's “threat matrix” showed a “big and credible” threat, Attorney General John Ashcroft warned Americans that a new attack could be imminent.
| |
| July 17, 2001 | - Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered federal marshals to protect an abortion doctor.
| |
| May 15, 2001 | - Attorney General John Ashcroft delayed the execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh after it was discovered that the F.B.I had failed to turn over 3,000 pages of interview reports to McVeigh's lawyers.
| |
| April 17, 2001 | - Attorney General John Ashcroft said he would allow the families of Timothy McVeigh's victims to watch McVeigh die on closed-circuit television.
| |
| February 6, 2001 | - The Democratic Party demonstrated its seriousness of purpose by failing to mount a filibuster to block the confirmation of former senator John Ashcroft, who was defeated by a dead man in the last election; Ashcroft was sworn in as Attorney General by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in a private ceremony.
| |
| January 23, 2001 | - Former senator John Ashcroft, who was defeated by a dead man in the last election, promised in his confirmation hearings to enforce the law, even laws with which he—as a right-wing, Christian, pro-life nut—disagreed.
| |
| January 23, 2001 | - Janet Ashcroft announced that she had once been “attacked by a rapist” and that “John's response to me was absolutely perfect, which amazed me.”
| |
| January 16, 2001 | - Liberal political groups were attempting to rally Senate
Democrats to oppose the nomination of John Ashcroft to be attorney general of the United States, though few seriously believed that members of the Democrat Party were brave or principled enough to do what it would take to defeat the right-wing Christian extremist.
| |
| December 26, 2000 | -
George W. Bush named former senator John Ashcroft to be attorney general; Ashcroft is best known for his extreme conservatism and for being unable in the last election to defeat a dead man.
| |
