“WASHINGTON (Wire Services)— Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced his resignation Monday, driven from office after a standoff with congressional critics over his honesty and competence. ‘I have lived the American dream. Even my worst days as attorney general have been better than my father’s best days,’ said Gonzales, the son of immigrants.
“RICHMOND, Va. (Wire Services)— Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick pleaded guilty Monday to a federal dogfighting charge. Vick apologized to all the people to whom he lied, the NFL commissioner, team owner Arthur Blank, the coach and his teammates. ‘I was not honest and forthright in our discussions,’ he said. Then he apologized to ‘all the young kids out there for my immature acts.’
“President Bush, Gonzales’ most dogged defender, told reporters he had accepted the resignation reluctantly. He praised his old friend as ‘a man of integrity, decency and principle’ and complained of the ‘months of unfair treatment’ preceding the resignation.
“‘We cannot tell you today that Michael is cut from the team,’ Blank said. ‘Cutting him today may feel better emotionally for us and many of our fans. But it’s not in the long-term best interests of our franchise.’
“‘The Department of Justice suffered a severe crisis of leadership that allowed our justice system to be corrupted by political influence,’ said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who has presided over the investigation into the firings of eight prosecutors who Democrats say were axed for political reasons.
“The team does intend to pursue the $22 million in bonus money that Vick already received in a $130 million contract signed in 2004. The NFL has suspended him indefinitely.
“Gonzales also has struggled in recent months to explain his involvement in a 2004 meeting at the hospital bedside of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, who had refused to certify the legality of Bush’s domestic wiretapping program. Ashcroft was in intensive care at the time.
“‘Dogfighting is a terrible thing, and I did reject it,’ Vick said. He is predicted to be sentenced to 12 to 18 months in prison.
“A Harvard-educated lawyer, Gonzales signed on with Bush in the mid-1990s. He served as general counsel and secretary of state when his patron was governor of Texas, then won an appointment to the state Supreme Court. As counsel, Gonzales helped get Bush excused from jury duty in 1996, which kept him from having to disclose a drunken-driving arrest in Maine in 1976. The episode became public in the final days of the 2000 presidential campaign.
“A federal indictment issued in July charged Vick and three co-defendants with an interstate dogfighting conspiracy. The three, who previously pleaded guilty, said Vick bankrolled the enterprise, and two of them said Vick participated in executing dogs that were not vicious enough — by hanging, drowning and electrocuting — in testing. The case began in late April when authorities conducting a drug investigation of Vick’s cousin raided the star’s rural Virginia property and seized dozens of dogs, some injured, and equipment commonly used in dogfighting.
“In a legal memo in 2002 — following the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — Gonzales contended that Bush had the right to waive anti-torture laws and international treaties that protected prisoners of war. The memo said some of the POW protections contained in the Geneva Conventions were ‘quaint’ and that in any event, the treaty did not apply to enemy combatants in the war on terror.
“In his written plea Monday, Vick admitted helping kill six to eight pit bulls and supplying money for gambling on the fights. He said he did not personally place any bets or share in any winnings.”
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