Ashcroft was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Grace P. ( née Larsen ) and James Robert Ashcroft.

In 1974, Ashcroft was narrowly defeated for election to that post by Jackson County County Executive George W. Lehr, who argued that Ashcroft, who is not an accountant, was not qualified to be the State Auditor.

Missouri Attorney General John Danforth, who was then in his second term, hired Ashcroft as an Assistant Attorney General.

In 1976, Danforth was elected to the U. S. Senate, and Ashcroft was elected to replace him as State Attorney General.

In 1980, Ashcroft was re-elected with 64. 5 percent of the vote and winning 96 of Missouri's 114 counties.

Ashcroft was elected governor in 1984 and re-elected in 1988, becoming the first ( and, to date, the only ) Republican elected to two consecutive terms in Missouri history.

During his second term ( 1991-92 ), Ashcroft was the chairman of the National Governors Association.

While Ashcroft was in office:

* Though Ashcroft initially opposed the legislation, while he was governor, Missouri enacted its first hate crimes legislation, creating penalties for ethnic intimidation and crimes committed for motives based on race, color, religion, or national origin, and penalties for institutional vandalism for damages to ethnically-related buildings and property.

In 1994 Ashcroft was elected to the U. S. Senate from Missouri, again succeeding a retiring John Danforth.

In December 2000, following his Senatorial defeat, Ashcroft was chosen for the position of US attorney general by president-elect George W. Bush who was impressed by Ashcroft.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Ashcroft was a key supporter of passage of the USA PATRIOT Act.

In March 2004, the Justice Department under Attorney General John Ashcroft ruled that the Stellar Wind domestic intelligence program was illegal.

In March 2006, the New York Times reported that Ashcroft was setting himself up as something of an " anti-Abramoff ", and that in an hour long interview, Ashcroft used the word integrity scores of times.

Ashcroft was subsequently hired by the National Association of Broadcasters, which is strongly opposed to the merger.

Ashcroft composed a paean called " Let the Eagle Soar " which he sang at the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in February 2002, which was satirically featured in Michael Moore's 2004 movie Fahrenheit 9 / 11 and has been frequently mocked by comedians such as David Letterman, Stephen Colbert and David Cross, to name a few.

In 2009 a federal court of appeals in San Francisco found that Ashcroft could be sued and held personally responsible for the wrongful detention of material witness Abdullah al-Kidd – an American citizen arrested in March 2003 and held for 13 months in maximum security to be used as a witness in the trial of Sami Omar Al-Hussayen ( who himself was acquitted of all charges of supporting terrorism ).

In 1972, Ashcroft ran for a Congressional seat in southwest Missouri in the Republican primary election, narrowly losing to Gene Taylor.

Ashcroft received 64 percent of the vote in the general election — the largest landslide for governor in Missouri history since the U. S. Civil War.

As governor, Ashcroft helped enact tougher standards and sentencing for gun crimes, increased funding for local law enforcement, and tougher standards and punishment for people bringing guns into schools.

In 1998, Ashcroft briefly considered running for U. S. President ; but on January 5, 1999, he announced that he would not seek the presidency and would instead defend his Senate seat in the 2000 election.

In May 2005, Ashcroft laid the groundwork for a strategic consulting firm that bears his name.

The Ashcroft Group, LLC officially opened its doors in the fall of 2005 and as of March 2006 had twenty-one clients, turning down two for every one accepted.

After the proposed merger of Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. and XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., Ashcroft offered the firm his consulting services, according to a spokesman for XM.

While attorney general of Missouri, Ashcroft and his wife co-wrote a textbook titled College Law for Business.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said that Ashcroft knew nothing of the decision to spend $ 8, 000 for the curtains ; a spokesman said the decision for permanent curtains was intended to save on the $ 2, 000 per use rental costs of temporary curtains used for formal events.

The Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 was draft legislation written by United States Department of Justice during the George W. Bush administration, under the tenure of United States Attorney General John Ashcroft.

On 28 March 2003, Judicial Watch filed a complaint to the Office of Government Ethics, the Office of the Defense Department Inspector General, the Office of the Homeland Security Inspector General, United States Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller in the matter of Former Defense Policy Board Chairman Richard N. Perle, Former President Bill Clinton, Former Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe and Global Crossing.

US Attorney General John Ashcroft, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and FBI Director Robert Mueller are all named in the lawsuit.

In addition, Section 2709 of the Act, which allowed the FBI to issue National Security Letters ( NSLs ) to Internet service providers ( ISPs ) ordering them to disclose records about their customers, was ruled unconstitutional under the First and Fourth Amendments in ACLU v. Ashcroft ( 2004 ).

For example, the song " Homeland Security " lampooned exaggerated terror threats, and " John Ashcroft and The Spirit of Justice " comically mocked John Ashcroft's prudishness over the Spirit of Justice statue.

Attorney General John Ashcroft told a Senate hearing before the funeral: " It is a sad commentary when the observation of a memorial service for a former president of the United States must be labeled a National Special Security Event.

In early January 2006, The New York Times, as part of their investigation into alleged domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency, reported that Comey, who was Acting Attorney General during the March 2004 surgical hospitalization of John Ashcroft, refused to " certify " the legality of central aspects of the NSA program at that time.

While Attorney General, Ashcroft consistently denied that the FBI or any other law enforcement agency had used the Patriot Act to obtain library circulation records or those of retail sales.

Along with sixteen other distinguished economists he opposed the Copyright Term Extension Act and filed an amicus brief in Eldred v. Ashcroft.

Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition,, further upheld these rights by invalidating the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996, holding that, because the act " rohibit child pornography that does not depict an actual child ..." it was overly broad and unconstitutional under the First Amendment and that:

Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U. S. 186 ( 2003 ) was a court case in the United States challenging the constitutionality of the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act ( CTEA ).

Hutchins's Tip of Oz, heavily mulling over ideas such as Pastoria-as-tailor and the execution of Mombi in The Lost King of Oz and similar material in The Giant Horse of Oz, received a one-paragraph citation in Eldred v. Ashcroft, and remains unpublished under the Copyright Term Extension Act.

In 2002, federal judge Robert E. Jones blocked a move by United States Attorney General John Ashcroft to suspend the license for prescribing drugs covered in the Controlled Substances Act of doctors who prescribed life-ending medications under the Oregon law.

After the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act in Eldred v. Ashcroft ( 2003 ), the United States District Court for the District of Colorado dismissed the plaintiffs ' challenge to that act in 2004 ( Golan v. Ashcroft ).

Ashcroft referred to American Library Association opposition to Section 215 as " hysteria " in two separate speeches given in September 2003.

In 2003, Ashcroft and the acting DEA Administrator, John B.

In 2003 John Gilmore sued United Airlines, Southwest Airlines and U. S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, arguing that requiring passengers to show identification before boarding domestic flights is tantamount to an internal passport, and is unconstitutional.

The case, Eldred v. Ashcroft, lost in 2003.

The Michael A Ashcroft Building opened in 2003 ; the Mildmay Sports Centre, and the Tindal Building, in 2005 ; the William Harvey Building in 2007 ; The Faculty Building ( renamed The Marconi Building in 2011 ) in 2008 ; and the Postgraduate Medical Institute building, opened 2011.

On 26 March, Ashcroft made his first live appearance of 2003 at London's Royal Albert Hall as part of the third annual Teenage Cancer Trust charity fundraising event, before " Buy It in Bottles ", the third and final single to be taken from the album, was released on 7 April, charting at # 26.

Aside from a limited number of appearances in 2003, Ashcroft was absent from the music business for about two years.

( 2003 ), co-edited ( with Diane Coyle and Brian Ashcroft ) New Wealth for Old Nations: Scotland ’ s Economic Prospects ( 2005 ), edited an anthology of essays on the life of the late First Minister, Donald Dewar: Scotland ’ s first First Minister ( 2005 ) and wrote a non-political column for young mums in The Daily Record.

In 2009 a federal court of appeals found that former Attorney General John Ashcroft could be sued personally for wrongful detention by material witness Abdullah al-Kidd, an American citizen arrested in 2003 and held for 16 days in maximum security prisons to be used as a witness in the trial of Sami Omar Al-Hussayen ( who himself was acquitted of all charges of supporting terrorism ).

Therefore he became the lead plaintiff in Eldred v. Ashcroft, a lawsuit which challenged the constitutionality of this act but lost in 2003.

* 2003 State of the Union: John Ashcroft, Attorney General and Norman Mineta, Secretary of Transportation

* Eric Eldred, the plaintiff in the 2003 court case, Eldred v. Ashcroft

She has also worked at the Royal National Theatre: playing as a junior member of the company in 1975, as Freda in Peter Hall's Old Vic production of John Gabriel Borkman ( starring Ralph Richardson, Peggy Ashcroft and Wendy Hiller ) and as Maggie in W. S. Gilbert's Engaged ; in 1995, as Lady Politic Would-Be in Matthew Warchus's Volpone ; and in 2003 as Dotty Otley in the NT's touring ( and London ) revival of Noises Off.

In December 2003, as Deputy Attorney General, Comey appointed the U. S. Attorney in Chicago, close friend and former colleague Patrick Fitzgerald, as Special Counsel to head the CIA leak grand jury investigation after Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself.