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September 6, 2007

U.S. Attorney Gonzales makes stop in Providence

PROVIDENCE -- Call it a social call from one U.S. attorney to another.

Today, U.S. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, who will step down from the office after an at-times controversial tenure, visited the U.S. Attorney's Office here and the State House.

Gonzales was stopping by on his way to a scheduled speech at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn., tonight.

At his visit to the office of U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente in Providence, he met with local and regional heads of other Department of Justice agencies, such as the FBI, the ATF, the DEA, and others, said Tom Connell, Corrente spokesman. Some of those heads are based in Providence, others in Boston.

"This attorney general has made a practice of visiting many of the U.S. Attorney's offices" Connell said, and Gonzales availed himself of this visit.

Gonzales, whose last day on the job is set for Sept. 17, arrived at the U.S. Attorney's office at about 11 a. m.

Gonzales’s staff reached out to the secretary of state’s office and Capitol Police late yesterday to arrange a State House tour.

“I am told these plans were very tentative,” Jeff Neal, spokesman for Governor Carcieri, said.

When he arrived at the State House at around 12:30 p.m., Gonzales was invited to meet the governor, a fellow Republican. They met for about 10 minutes in Carcieri’s office, Neal said, adding that he didn’t know what was discussed.

The General Assembly leadership did not attend the meeting.

“It was definitely an unscheduled, unplanned, spur-of-the-moment meeting,” Neal said.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney and Steve Peoples of the Journal State House Bureau

Posted by Mike McKinney  at 5:18 PM | Permalink

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