Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has recused himself from the Enron Corp. criminal prosecutions, his office said Thursday.
Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra would not say why Gonzales made that decision.
But the attorney general did legal work for Enron when he was practicing law in Houston. And while he was a Texas judge, he accepted a campaign contribution from an Enron political committee.
Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft also recused himself from overseeing the Enron prosecutions because he accepted campaign funds from the company when he was running for the U.S. Senate.
With the recusal, the Enron Task Force prosecutors will not report all the way up the chain of command to Gonzales.
Steven Lubet, a law professor at Northwestern University, has said there is no law governing such recusals, nor was there an ethical principle that precluded Gonzales from overseeing the case.
"It was the prudent thing to do," Lubet said in a story in Friday's Houston Chronicle. "Ensuring public confidence is always a good idea."
Gonzales did legal work for Enron in the early 1990s while at Vinson & Elkins law firm in Houston. Enron was that law firm's largest client for several years.
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