Welcome to Gonzales Watch - Blawging the Ex-Attorney General

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has friends in high places raising money for the embattled lawyer’s trust fund set up for his legal defense.

Gonzales resigned from his position as the country’s top lawyer on September 17, 2007.

According to the Washington Post, Ford Motor Co.’s General Counsel David Leitch (inset) is spearheading the fundraising effort. He worked under Gonzales as White House Deputy Counsel when Gonzales served as White House Counsel.

Leitch’s Ford bio says that, while working for Gonzales and Bush, “he advised the President and his staff on a variety of legal issues, including issues involving the war on terror, judicial nominations, legislative proposals and ethics.”

Although he is not currently facing criminal charges of wrongdoing related to the politically-motivated firing of career federal prosecutors, Gonzales retained high-powered D.C. white collar criminal defense lawyer George J. Terwilliger, III at White & Case in all matters related to the Justice Department Inspector General’s ongoing investigation of the firings debacle.

According to an ABA book on the Patriot Act, Patriot Debates: Experts Debate the USA PATRIOT Act, Terwilliger, takes a hard line against illegal immigration — the very route that brought his Gonzales’ family to Texas from Mexico decades ago.

The book explains that:

George Terwilliger urges aggressive legal action to control illegal immigration. He supports a national identity card, an approach to applicants for entry that differentiates by likely threat, an end to the release of asylum claimants while their cases are pending, the exclusion of illegal immigrants, with jail terms for repeat offenders, and the fingerprinting of all foreign visitors and immigrants.

Terwilliger’s law firm bio also notes that he “was a leader of President George W. Bush’s legal team during the Florida election recount,” and ensuing Bush v. Gore litigation.