Alberto Gonzalez is the new U.S. Attorney General

WASHINGTON (CBS) President Bush has chosen White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, a Texas confidant and one of the most prominent Hispanics in the administration, to succeed Attorney General John Ashcroft, sources tell CBS News.

CBS News White House Correspondent Peter Maer reports that an official announcement is expected later today.

Gonzales would become the first Hispanic attorney general if he is confirmed by the Senate.

Ashcroft announced his resignation on Tuesday, along with Commerce Secretary Don Evans, a Texas friend of the president's.

Gonzales, 49, has long been rumored as a leading candidate for a Supreme Court vacancy if one develops. Speculation increased after Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist announced he has thyroid cancer.

Gonzales' career has been linked with Bush for at least a decade, serving as general counsel when Bush was governor of Texas, and then as secretary of state and as a justice on the Texas Supreme Court.

Gonzales has been at the center of developing Bush's positions on balancing civil liberties with waging the war on terrorism ? opening the White House counsel to the same line of criticism that has dogged Ashcroft.

For instance, Gonzales publicly defended the administration's policy ? essentially repudiated by the Supreme Court and now being fought out in the lower courts ? of detaining certain terrorism suspects for extended periods without access to lawyers or courts.

He also wrote a controversial February 2002 memo in which Bush claimed the right to waive anti-torture law and international treaties providing protections to prisoners of war. That position drew fire from human rights groups, which said it helped led to the type of abuses uncovered in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

Some conservatives also have quietly questioned Gonzales' credentials on core social issues. And he once was a partner in a Houston law firm which represented the scandal-ridden energy giant Enron.

After a National Security Council meeting, Mr. Bush was sitting down Wednesday with Secretary of State Colin Powell, another figure being closely watched for signs of whether he will stay or go.

Powell is widely believed to be leaving the Cabinet, but he has remained noncommittal about his intentions.

The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that people close to Powell say he may decide to remain in his post, at least for several months.

In other Cabinet developments:

# Three high-ranking administration officials said they would like to remain on the job. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Leavitt all said they want to continue.

# Another key Cabinet figure, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, appeared to suggest he was staying on by discussing his future plans for a reorganization of the military at a news conference on Monday.

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