From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. John David Ashcroft (born May 9, 1942) is a United States politician who was the 79th United States attorney general. He served during the first term of President George W. Bush from 2001 until 2005. Ashcroft was previously the 50th Governor of Missouri (1985–1993) and a US senator from Missouri (1995–2001). Description above from the Wikipedia article John Ashcroft, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia