Alberto Gonzales became the latest alum who served under the George W. Bush administration to endorse Democrat Vice President Harris for president.
Gonzales, who described himself as the “only lawyer in American history to serve both as White House counsel and as attorney general,” laid out his stance in an op-ed published in Politico on Thursday.
“As the United States approaches a critical election, I can’t sit quietly as Donald Trump — perhaps the most serious threat to the rule of law in a generation — eyes a return to the White House. For that reason, though I’m a Republican, I’ve decided to support Kamala Harris for president,” Gonzales wrote. “Power is intoxicating and based on Trump’s rhetoric and conduct it appears unlikely that he would respect the power of the presidency in all instances; rather, he would abuse it for personal and political gain, and not on behalf of the American people.”
Gonzales took issue with the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Trump v. United States that a former president has substantial immunity from prosecution for official – but not unofficial – acts committed while in office.
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President George W. Bush announced his nominee for Attorney General, the current White House Counsel, Alberto Gonzales, on Nov. 10, 2004. (Brooks Kraft LLC/Corbis via Getty Images)
“The character of the person we elect in November is particularly important today because the current members of the House of Representatives and the Senate have proven spectacularly incapable or unwilling to check abuses of executive power,” he wrote. “While the U.S. Supreme Court is certainly capable of curbing presidential power, the court has recently ruled that certain restraints on presidential acts would be unconstitutional.”
The question of presidential immunity stemmed from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 case against Trump. Gonzales took jabs at Trump’s conduct during the riot at the U.S. Capitol, before turning back to the ruling, which has left many of the former president’s cases in limbo while he continues to campaign before his November matchup against Harris.
“Any discussion about fidelity to the rule of law has to include Trump’s 34 state felony convictions, his state civil financial judgment of libel based on sexual abuse, as well as the pending federal elections interference case, not to mention the recently dismissed federal documents case that Special Counsel Jack Smith is continuing to pursue,” Gonzales wrote. “Standing alone, these charges, convictions and judgments show that Trump is someone who fails to act, time and time again, in accordance with the rule of law. There is little evidence that he has the integrity and character to responsibly wield the power of the presidency within the limits of the law. And no amount of rationalization to support Trump because of his policies can overcome the disqualification of this man based on his lack of integrity.”
While admitting to having spoken with Trump only once and not really knowing him, Gonzales said “it is telling, however, that several senior officials who worked for him in the White House now refuse to support him, including his vice president, chief of staff, defense secretary and national security adviser.”
For Harris, the former Bush official assessed she does not have the same level of foreign policy experience as Biden.
Gonzales argued that Harris, who has served as the Biden administration’s border czar, should be off the hook for Biden’s economic policies and the border crisis, writing that a vice president “has little to no influence on economic policy” and “may provide input, but it is the president who is the ultimate decision-maker.” He said Congress is as much to blame as Biden for high prices for childcare, housing, gasoline, and groceries, while “Trump and his supporters in Congress assumed partial responsibility for the tough border situation when they killed bipartisan legislation in order to help Trump’s election chances.”
Former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris debate Tuesday. (Fox News screenshot)
“We do not yet know exactly how Harris will govern if she is elected,” he wrote. “Casting a vote for Harris will require the American people to place their faith in her character and judgment. Some may see her as too progressive and worry she would be too easily manipulated. There is little mystery or doubt, however, about how Trump will act and govern based on past behavior and comments. He will help those who help him and his family for personal or financial reasons. He will likely pull back from our leadership role among other democracies in the fight against authoritarianism.”
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“Harris, meanwhile, has sworn fidelity to the rule of law as a former local prosecutor and state attorney general,” Gonzales wrote.
Last month, a dozen Republican White House lawyers who served in the administrations of then-Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush endorsed Harris in a letter released after she formally accepted her nomination in a speech at the Democratic National Convention.
We endorse Kamala Harris and support her election as President because we believe that returning former President Trump to office would threaten American democracy and undermine the rule of law in our country,” the lawyers wrote in a letter that the signatories shared first with Fox News Digital.
Alberto Gonzales speaks about Attorney General William Barr and the Mueller Report during the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Young Lawyers Division 2019 Spring Conference, on May 3, 2019, in Washington, D.C. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
The two George W. Bush administration officials who joined the letter were John B. Bellinger III, who served as Senior Associate Counsel to the President and Legal Adviser to the NSC, and John M. Mitnick, who served as Associate Counsel to the President and Deputy Counsel for the White House Homeland Security Council.
George W. Bush’s former vice president, Dick Cheney, announced last week that he would go against his party’s candidate and support Harris in November.
In a statement, Cheney wrote that “in our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again.”
Trump responded to Cheney’s endorsement by calling the former vice president “an irrelevant RINO” in a Truth Social post shortly after Cheney’s announcement.
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A day later, George W. Bush’s office said when asked by NBC News. that neither the former president nor former first lady Laura Bush would endorse a candidate publicly in the 2024 election.
Fox News’ Michael Lee, Paul Steinhauser and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
