Alberto Gonzales is the 80th Attorney General of the United States, succeeding John Ashcroft after being nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate 60-36 on Feb. 3, 2005. He was sworn in on Feb. 14 that same year and become the highest-placed Hispanic ever in the U.S. Government.

Gonzales was born Aug. 4, 1955 in San Antonio, Texas, and raised in Humble, near Houston. He formerly served as White House Counsel to Bush. Before that he was appointed by Bush to the Texas Supreme Court when Bush was the governor of Texas.

Gonzales was the second of eight children born to Pablos and Maria Gonzales. His father, who died in 1982, was a construction worker. Both his parents were children of immigrants from Mexico with less than a high-school education themselves.

Gonzles was an honors student in high school and enlisted in the Air Force in 1973 and entered the United States Air Force Academy in 1975. In 1977, he transferred to Rice University and earned a degree in political science in 1979. He was the only one of his siblings to finish college. In 1982, he earned a law degree from Harvard Law School.

He has been married twice. He and his current wife, Rebecca Turner Gonzales, have three sons. Gonzales has described himself as a Catholic.

As counsel to the governor, Gonzales helped Bush be excused from jury duty when he was called in a 1996 Travis County drunk driving case.

As counsel, Gonzales also reviewed all Texas clemency requests. The state of Texas executed more prisoners during Gonzales' term than any other state.

Gonzalez became more well known nationally in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Executive Order 13233, drafted by Gonzales and issued by Bush on Nov. 1, 2001, attempted to place limitations on the Freedom of Information Act by restricting access to the records of former presidents.

Among some of the legal work Gonzales prformed for the president:

Gonzales authored a memo in January 2002 exploring whether Article III of the Geneva Convention applied to al-Qaida and Taliban fighters.

Gonzales wrote a presidential order authorizing the use of military tribunals to try terrorist suspects.

Gonzales argued that Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy task force documents should not be made public.

Gonzales was an early advocate of the USA PATRIOT Act.