No longer a rumor, Gonzales is stepping down as U.S. Attorney General.  The first report was from the New York Times.  Gonzales will be holding a press conference this morning.  C-Span has heard Solicitor General Paul Clements will become the Acting Attorney General.  

John Conyers, Jr., House Judiciary Committee Chairman, has released the following statement this morning:

It is a sad day when the Attorney General of the United States resigns amid a cloud of suspicion that the system of justice has been manipulated for political purposes. More than accountability, we need answers. Unfortunately, the continued stonewalling of the White House in the U.S. Attorney scandal has deprived the American people of the truth. If the power of the prosecutor has been misused in the name of partisanship, we deserve a full airing of the facts. The responsibility to uncover these facts is still on the Congress, and the Judiciary Committee in particular.

Update [2007-8-27 13:37:11 by standingup]: Gerry Hebert has added his thoughts in an excellent post on the Campaign Legal Center Blog. His perspective has value as a former DOJ career attorney who traveled down a similar road during one of the department's other darkest periods during the Nixon presidency.

I felt a mixed sense of relief and sadness when I heard this morning that Alberto Gonzales was resigning as Attorney General. As a twenty-one year veteran of the Department of Justice (1973-1994), I have been deeply concerned about the need to restore integrity and competence to the Department. So I was relieved that Gonzales is leaving because it opens up a window of opportunity to do this. But I was sad because I know during his tenure, and John Ashcroft before him, good lawyers were driven away out of frustration; and those career prosecutors who are still there tell me they very much feel as if they are on a rudderless ship.

It will not be easy to restore the Department’s integrity and effectiveness. So what happens next, and what type of person might be in a position to do this ? For me, the answer is easy, because I went through something similar to this more than thirty years ago.