WASHINGTON, 11 November 2004 — President Bush has chosen White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, a Texas confidant and the most prominent Hispanic in the administration, to succeed Attorney General John Ashcroft, sources close to the White House said yesterday.

The White House hinted that formal word from the president could come later yesterday. “I would not rule out an announcement today,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

Ashcroft announced his resignation on Tuesday, along with Commerce Secretary Don Evans, a Texas friend of the president’s.

Gonzales, 49, has long been rumored as a leading candidate for a Supreme Court vacancy if one develops. Speculation increased after Chief Justice William Rehnquist announced he has thyroid cancer.

Gonzales’ career has been linked with Bush for at least a decade, serving as general counsel when Bush was governor of Texas, and then as secretary of state and as a justice on the Texas Supreme Court.

Gonzales has been at the center of developing Bush’s positions on balancing civil liberties with waging the war on terrorism - opening the White House counsel to the same line of criticism that has dogged Ashcroft.

For instance, Gonzales publicly defended the administration’s policy — essentially repudiated by the Supreme Court and now being fought out in the lower courts — of detaining certain terrorism suspects for extended periods without access to lawyers or courts.

He also wrote a controversial February 2002 memo in which Bush claimed the right to waive anti-torture law and international treaties providing protections to prisoners of war. That position drew fire from human rights groups, which said it helped led to the type of abuses uncovered in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

The American Civil Liberties Union said it expected the Senate to closely examine those issues during confirmation hearings. The ACLU said it had no position on Gonzales, but added: “Particular attention should be devoted to exploring Mr. Gonzales’ proposed policies on the constitutionality of the Patriot Act, the Guantanamo Bay detentions, the designation of United States citizens as enemy combatants and reproductive rights.”

Some conservatives also have quietly questioned Gonzales’ credentials on core social issues. And he once was a partner in a Houston law firm which represented the scandal-ridden energy giant Enron.

Gonzales would be the first Hispanic attorney general.

But shifting him to Justice would create a vacancy in the White House counsel’s office. Bush advisers said two people would be naturals for the job. One is White House staff secretary Brett Kavanaugh, a lawyer who has been waiting nearly 16 months for confirmation on the influential US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. He was also a top lawyer in two cases that dogged the Clinton White House. As associate independent counsel under Kenneth Starr, he worked on both the long-running Whitewater case and the 1998 Clinton impeachment case.

Harriet Miers, a deputy chief of staff who was once Bush’s personal lawyer, would be another candidate, one Bush adviser said.

After a National Security Council meeting, Bush sat down yesterday with Secretary of State Colin Powell, another figure being closely watched. Powell has been largely non-commital when asked about his plans.

The gospel-singing son of a minister, Ashcroft is a fierce conservative who doesn’t drink, smoke or dance. His detractors said he gave religion too prominent a role at the Justice Department — including optional prayer meetings with staff before each workday. He has also been a willing lightning rod for critics who said his policies for thwarting terrorists infringed on the rights of innocent people.

The departure of Ashcroft, 62, marks the end of the most controversial and influential figures of Bush’s first term in office. Known as one of the most combatant attorneys general in decades, his anti-terrorism policies made him the center of a angry national debate over civil liberties.

As the nation’s top federal law enforcement official, many say Ashcroft’s religious faith dominated many of his decisions and, aides acknowledge, helped portray a severe view of the evils of terrorism and his duty to preserve America’s type of freedom.

Ashcroft became a detested symbol to Democrats and civil liberties groups who believed the Bush administration was going too far in strengthening the country’s police powers at the cost of individual privacy and freedom after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

His critics lambasted him for issuing no apology after an inspector general reported abuses of hundreds of Muslims swept up on immigration charges after the attacks. None were charged with terrorism.

Ashcroft’s Justice Department also argued to increase the president’s wartime powers. This received mixed results when tested in court. In the most notable case, the department named US citizens Jose Padilla and Yaser Hamdi “enemy combatants.”

After spending almost three years fighting that decision all the way up to the US Supreme Court and denying the two accused access to lawyers during most of that time because they posed a “grave” danger - Hamdi was released last month without charges and allowed to return to Saudi Arabia. Padilla is still in custody.

Ashcroft also shepherded in the era of the USA Patriot Act, a law with several controversial provisions that fueled the anger of civil libertarians already uneasy with the department. Debate over the law led Ashcroft to call critical librarians “hysterical” and warn that opponents’ disapproval would “aid the terrorists.”

Ashcroft — who does not smoke, drink, gamble or dance — peppered much of his first year with reminders of his faith. He held daily prayer sessions in his office and frequently quoted from the Bible in his prepared speeches. Those references vanished when critics charged that he was imposing religion on the secular state.

Ashcroft’s resignation was widely expected, but Evans announcement was not. He is one of Bush’s closest personal friends from Texas and some said a possible candidate for another Cabinet post.

Evans, 58, received praise for his ability to negotiate and represent Bush’s economic priorities. He was instrumental in the successful passage of the $1.3 trillion tax cut in 2000 and the Trade Promotion Authority in 2002.

Evans’ close relationship with Bush dates to the 1970s when both were in the Texas oil business. He was involved in all of Bush’s political campaigns.

— Additional input from agencies.