John Ashcroft

John David Ashcroft (born May 9, 1942) was the 79th Attorney General of the United States, succeeding Janet Reno and succeeded by Alberto R. Gonzales.

On January 5, 1999, he announced that he would defend his Senate seat in his 2000 reelection. In his bid for reelection to the Senate, Ashcroft faced a challenge from then-Governor Mel Carnahan. Carnahan died in an airplane crash two weeks prior to the November general election. Carnahan recieved a majority of votes though, in hopes the incumbent Democratic Governor would fill the vacancy with his spouse. The issue of whether a dead person could be elected to the Senate appeared headed to the Courts when Ashcroft was asked by President-elect George W. Bush to serve as U.S. Attorney General, and thus a vacancy did actually appear.

In 2002, the American government spent $8000 of taxpayer's money on curtains so that Ashcroft would not have to be photographed in front of a statue of a bare-breasted figure of Justice during his press conferences. [1]

Ashcroft, is a fervent lifelong member of the Assemblies of God church. Other members of this church include Elvis Presley, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker and former Reagan administration Interior Secretary James Watt.

In the 1970s, Ashcroft recorded a gospel record entitled TRUTH: Volume One, Edition One with Missouri legislator Max Bacon. He is also known for writing the book "Lessons from my Father," released in 1997, when it was rumored Ashcroft was considering a run for the Republican Presidential nomination. The book's title may have been chosen deliberately to contrast with that of Barack Obama's first book, "Dreams from my Father" (released 1995), and to indicate that while Obama is a dreamer, Ashcroft is a serious student.

In February 2002, Ashcroft told the Los Angeles Times that in his opinion "Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends his son to die for you".

Ashcroft composed a song called "Let the Eagle Soar" which he sang at the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in February 2002.

In March 2004, Ashcroft entered the George Washington Medical Center with gallstone pancreatitis. During this time, he seriously considered resigning over the National Security Agency eavesdropping program targeting Americans for whom some evidence not amounting to probable cause exists that they are somehow involved with terrorism, particularly after White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andrew Card were sent to his bedside to get his signature to renew the program, which was on the point of expiring. It swiftly became clear that Ashcroft's deputy James Comey and Federal Bureau of Investigation director Robert Mueller were also prepared to resign, so President Bush approved the first of two rounds of changes to the program to bring it into compliance with existing law, particularly the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. The continuing need for the program was demonstrated by the 2004 Madrid bombing, which helped persuade Ashcroft and other recalcitrant officials that they should not resign over it.

On November 9, 2004, Ashcroft nonetheless announced his resignation from his post as Attorney General. As is traditional for Cabinet members, he has gone on to a much more highly compensated lobbying position in the private sector.

Ashcroft was an enthusiastic advocate of the War on Drugs.

In March 2006, the New York Times reported that Ashcroft was setting himself up as something of an "anti-Abramoff".