Speculation Swirls Around Top Justice Job

A top candidate to succeed U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft professed no interest in the job Thursday, as speculation mounted that Ashcroft might be the first Cabinet member to leave the Bush administration since the president’s reelection.

Larry D. Thompson, Ashcroft’s former deputy, said he was “fully engaged and committed” to a senior executive position he took last summer with PepsiCo in Purchase, N.Y., according to a statement issued by the soft drink and snack foods company.

Thompson, 59, who held the deputy post until August 2003, was highly regarded for his running of the day-to-day affairs of the Justice Department. He also led a department crackdown on corporate crime.

The statement did not say whether Thompson would reject an offer to be attorney general if Bush asked.

Thompson would be the first African American attorney general.

Neither the company nor Thompson would elaborate.

Ashcroft has been a major player in Bush’s war against terrorism, attracting criticism from civil rights groups and compiling a mixed record in prosecuting terrorism suspects. He has also suffered health problems.

Bush said Thursday that there would be changes in his Cabinet, but that no decisions had been made.

Ashcroft is expected to submit his resignation in a few days, carrying through on a long-standing promise to give the president full discretion in selecting top aides for a second term. However, aides to Bush said he had not asked Cabinet secretaries to submit resignations between terms, as some past presidents had done.

Ashcroft may already have indicated his intention to resign to the president, one source said, and the White House has begun at least an informal search for his replacement. A White House spokesman declined to comment.

Besides Thompson, the field of potential candidates includes White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, Bush-Cheney campaign chairman and former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot and former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who gained fame as a federal prosecutor of organized crime.

Sunny Mindel, a spokeswoman for Giuliani, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2008, sought to dampen speculation that Giuliani, also a top Justice official during the Reagan administration, might be interested in a second tour at the department.

“He is very happy in the private sector,” Mindel said.

Law-enforcement sources have said Ashcroft is ready to move on, after four years of intense scrutiny as well as surgery in March to have his gallbladder removed after he was diagnosed with a severe case of pancreatitis.

His aides downplay the significance of his possible departure, noting that the average length of service for an attorney general is about two years.

Ashcroft’s predecessor, Janet Reno, served eight years, and was the longest-running attorney general since the Civil War.

But Ashcroft’s tenure has also been marked by pitched battles with civil rights groups and members of Congress over his treatment of illegal immigrants after the attacks of Sept. 11. The department’s record for prosecuting terrorism suspects has been marred by a number of setbacks, including a Detroit judge’s decision in early September to throw out the first jury verdict in a post-Sept. 11 terrorism case, based on evidence of widespread prosecutorial misconduct.

The uncertainty about Ashcroft’s future comes as his standing with the administration would seem to be rising, with social conservatives, who drove his nomination four years ago, playing a key role in the president’s reelection.

Gonzales, who has indicated privately that he is interested in the job, would be the first Latino to become U.S. attorney general.

PepsiCo’s statement on Thompson, who was named the company’s senior vice president and general counsel in August, said that he was “proud for the service he has given to the president and the nation, but is excited about the new opportunity he is just beginning with PepsiCo, and is fully engaged and committed to that endeavor.”