Sources close to President George W. Bush indicate that he has selected White House counsel Alberto Gonzales as his nominee to succeed outgoing Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Gonzales and Bush have been working together for years and the 49 year old Texan has served as general counsel of Texas, as Texas secretary of State and as a justice of the Texas Supreme Court while Mr. Bush was governor of that state. Gonzales has also been rumored to be a potential nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court if President Bush gets to make a nominee in the near future.

Gonzales has agreed with the Bush Administration's holding of prisoners without charges at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere as 'enemy combantants' which gives them less access to an attorney and denies them a right to a public hearing. Gonzales also wrote an internal memo in 2002 with regard to the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, arguing that they did meet requirements to be treated as Prisoners of War under the Geneva Conventions.

If confirmed, Gonzales would be the highest ranking Hispanic in the Bush Administration.