By Xinhua
·U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has resigned, U.S. media reported Monday.
·The Justice Department has scheduled a press conference on the issue.
·Solicitor General Paul Clement will be a temporary replacement.
Washongton : U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced his resignation Monday.
“It has been one of my greatest privileges to lead the Department of Justice,” he said in a statement at a brief news conference. The resignation will be effective as of Sept. 17, Gonzales added.
Earlier news reports said Gonzales submitted a resignation letter last Friday and U.S. President George W. Bush has accepted the resignation.
Bush will make a statement at 11:30 (1530 GMT) from his ranch in Crawford, Texas, where he has been vacationing.
Solicitor General Paul Clement will be a temporary replacement until a permanent replacement is found, according to news reports.
Gonzales, a longtime Bush aide, is the latest high-ranking official to leave the Bush administration.
Bush will likely nominate Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff as the permanent replacement.
In turn, Clay Johnson, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget at the White House, will replace Chertoff.
Gonzales’ move comes after Bush’s chief political strategist Karl Rove announced his resignation earlier this month.
Senior administration officials said White House Chief of StaffJosh Bolten had told senior aides that if they intended to stay after Labor Day, which falls on Sept. 3, they would have to remain for the rest of Bush’s term through January 2009.
There has been no official comment on the motive behind the resignation of Gonzales, who is under tight scrutiny of the Congress since April.
Many lawmakers have long called for his removal after the firing of several U.S. attorneys in 2006. But Bush had long stood by Gonzales.
One of Gonzales’ chief critics, Sen. Charles E. Schumer, hailed the move.
“Well I think that clearly this was the right thing to do,” said the New York Democrat.
“It took a long time but there is no question about it that the Justice Department is virtually nonfunctional.”
“No one thought Alberto Gonzales was up to the job,” he added. “We need someone who will put rule of law first.”
Throughout Gonzales’ tenure, controversies surrounded his positions on issues such as U.S. interrogation techniques and the wiretapping of conversations between Americans and suspected terrorists overseas.
This year, after Congress began an investigation into the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, Gonzales faced a great deal of scrutiny — and the calls for his dismissal began.
The Senate Judiciary Committee looked into whether the administration may have fired some or all of them for political reasons.
In his testimony before the committee on multiple occasions, Gonzales repeatedly seemed to contradict himself, other members of his department, or Justice Department documents.
The attorney general also testified that he could not answer dozens of questions because he could not “recall” certain incidents or meetings.
A longtime friend and legal adviser to the president, Gonzales was nominated by Bush in November, 2004, and confirmed by the Senate in February, 2005.
Other White House officials who have left in the wake of the 2006 election include White House counselor Dan Bartlett, budget director Rob Portman, chief White House attorney Harriet Miers, political director Sara Taylor, deputy national security adviser J.D. Crouch and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.