John Ashcroft

John Ashcroft, born in 1942, governor of Missouri (1984-1992); United States senator from Missouri (1994-2000); and United States attorney general (2001-2004). Ashcroft was appointed attorney general by President George W. Bush. He resigned after Bush won his second term as president.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Ashcroft grew up in Springfield, Missouri. He began writing and performing gospel, patriotic, and country-music songs in his youth—a talent he continued to nurture. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1964 and a law degree from the University of Chicago in 1967.

A Republican, Ashcroft was appointed state auditor of Missouri in 1973 and was elected state attorney general in 1976 and 1980. He became governor of Missouri in 1984 and was reelected in 1988. Ashcroft came to national prominence in the late 1980s when Missouri brought suit to enforce a state law restricting abortion in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately upheld Missouri’s law.

Prevented by state law from running for a third term as governor, Ashcroft entered a law practice in St. Louis, Missouri. When Republican John C. Danforth announced his pending retirement from the U.S. Senate in 1994, Ashcroft ran for the seat and won. In 2000 he was defeated for reelection by Democrat Mel Carnahan, who was killed just weeks before the election. The Missouri governor appointed Carnahan’s wife, Jean Carnahan, to serve a special two-year term.

After George W. Bush was elected president in 2000, he nominated Ashcroft to oversee the Department of Justice as attorney general. Although Ashcroft’s nomination was controversial because of his conservative views, the U.S. Senate confirmed Ashcroft in early 2001.

As attorney general, Ashcroft oversaw key aspects of the investigation into the September 11, 2001, attacks by terrorists on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The same year he helped draft the Patriot Act, which gave federal law enforcement officials greater authority to use electronic surveillance to track people or to eavesdrop on them. The act quickly became controversial. Supporters said the act successfully expanded the government’s ability to combat domestic terrorism. Critics, including former vice president Al Gore, said it infringed on the civil liberties of U.S. citizens and called for the act to be repealed. Despite the criticism, in 2003 Ashcroft began traveling the country to defend the Patriot Act and advocate a plan to expand it. See also Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

Ashcroft also oversaw the Justice Department’s involvement in the cases of several high-profile figures: convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad, serial bombing suspect Eric Rudolph, and alleged terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui. Ashcroft also led the Justice Department in its investigations of corporate governance scandals.

He oversaw the indictments in February 2004 of two former chief executive officers of major corporations. They were Bernard J. Ebbers, former chief executive officer of WorldCom Inc., who was accused of presiding over the largest accounting fraud in the history of U.S. business, and Enron Corporation’s former chief executive officer Jeffrey Skilling, who faced dozens of criminal charges involving insider trading and fraud. See also Enron Scandal; History of United States Business.