Seeking to strike a political balance in his Cabinet, President-elect George W. Bush tapped conservative Sen. John Ashcroft as attorney general and moderate New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman as head of the Environmental Protection Agency. The nominations Friday capped an intense week during which Bush built his administration, met with key interest groups and resigned as Texas governor. He retired to his Texas ranch Friday and was to return to Austin on Saturday to pack up at the governor's mansion. In Ashcroft and Whitman, Bush chose two high-profile Cabinet members who are lightning rods for controversy. Ashcroft, a Republican from Missouri, is a deeply conservative senator who lost his re-election bid last month to a dead man; Whitman, a moderate long embroiled in the Republicans' internal battle over abortion. She favors abortion rights. Ashcroft was elected to the Senate in 1994, and served on the Judiciary Committee, but lost re-election this year to Gov. Mel Carnahan, who died in a plane crash three weeks before Election Day. Carnahan's widow, Jean, has been appointed to succeed Ashcroft next month. Ashcroft "will be faithful to the law, pursuing justice without favor. He will enforce the law and he will follow the truth," Bush said. Several hours later, Bush formally tapped Whitman, saying, "She has been able to balance the demands for economic growth and at the same time she supported environmental protection measures." "This job will be a challenge," said Whitman, 54, who has championed open-space preservation in New Jersey and refused to abandon an unpopular auto emissions test designed to reduce air pollution. Ashford, a favorite of Republican conservatives who had maneuvered against more moderate choices for the Justice Department, said he would "strive to be a guardian of liberty and equal justice." "I will administer the Department of Justice with integrity, I will advise your administration with integrity and I will enforce the laws ... with integrity," he promised Bush. Many Republicans have accused Attorney General Janet Reno of playing politics for refusing to appoint an independent counsel to investigate President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore for alleged campaign fund-raising abuses. Bush, asked how his department would differ from the Clinton administration, said he didn't want to "look backwards." He said Ashcroft will do his job "in an impartial way, not in a political way." Republicans close to Bush said he had decided to put conservatives in key Cabinet jobs, including attorney general, health and human services and defense, partly to please the Republican right. Bush defended Ashcroft against complaints from civil rights groups that he helped defeat the nomination for a federal judgeship of Missouri Supreme Court Judge Ronnie White, the first black on the high court. "He had his reasons of blocking a single nomination. And I thought about that, and I looked at the facts, and I listened to him. And there's no question in my mind that this is a person who believes in civil rights for all citizens," Bush said. Nevertheless, Julian Bond, the board chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said: "Any pretense of unifying the nation has ended with this nomination." "This confirms the correctness of blacks voting 9-to-1 against Governor Bush," Bond said. At the Justice Department, Ashcroft would manage an agency that comprises the FBI, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Drug Enforcement Administration and federal prosecutors, marshals and prisons, among others. Bush on Friday also named Mitch Daniels, senior vice president of the pharmaceutical maker Eli Lilly and Co. and a former Reagan White House aide, to be director of the Office of Management and Budget. Virginia Gov. James Gilmore was picked to head the Republican National Committee. Meanwhile, Bush's transition team on Friday finally moved into its permanent, government-sponsored home in Washington from a temporary office in suburban McLean, Virginia. Federal officials had denied the Bush team access to the office space for a month while Gore pushed for a recount of ballots in Florida in the drawn-out postelection legal battle. Bureau Report