WASHINGTON—President Bush renewed his support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Tuesday in the face of resignation calls, as the Democratic-led Congress moved to widen its probe into the firings of eight federal prosecutors.
White House counsel Fred Fielding was negotiating with lawmakers over which, if any, administration officials would testify about the sackings, which touched off a firestorm in Congress into whether the dismissals were politically motivated.
With a number of Democrats and a few Republicans in Congress calling for Gonzales to step aside as the nation's chief law enforcement officer, Bush telephoned him early Tuesday, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
"The president reaffirmed his strong backing and support of the attorney general," Perino said.
Congressional committees plan to vote this week on whether to subpoena those who refuse to testify. They are particularly interested in hearing from White House political strategist Karl Rove. A former aide to Rove was named to replace one of the prosecutors fired last year.
Critics charge the administration dismissed the prosecutors to make room for its allies or because it felt some were too tough on Republicans and not tough enough on Democrats.
Recently released documents showed the administration had considered firing all the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys, each a Bush appointee, at the end of president's first term in January 2005. But later it decided to dismiss just eight.
The documents also showed the U.S. attorneys were judged on such factors as their effectiveness as well as their loyalty to the administration.
Former prosecutors said they were given little if any reason for their dismissal and were warned the administration might retaliate if they complained. The administration denied any such threats.
Many Republicans lawmakers have said publicly that no judgment should be made on Gonzales until the facts are determined.
"I don't sense that members are rushing to his defense, nor does it appear that they would lose any sleep if he was replaced," a Republican leadership aide said.
Among 3,000 new pages of documents released by the Justice Department Monday was one showing Gonzales upset about testimony Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty gave to the Senate on Feb. 6 about the firings.
McNulty told the Senate Judiciary Committee the dismissals were largely performance-related, but that one U.S. attorney in Arkansas was fired to make room for a former Rove aide.
"The attorney general is extremely upset with the stories on the US Attys (attorneys) this morning," Brian Roehrkasse, a Justice spokesman, wrote in an e-mail to two department colleagues.
"He also thought that some of the DAGs (deputy attorney general's) statements were inaccurate," Roehrkasse added.
Gonzales had insisted that politics was not involved in the dismissals. In a recent column in USA Today, he wrote that the U.S. attorneys were fired because he had lost confidence in them.
The Senate was to vote Tuesday on whether to revoke power it granted to the administration to indefinitely appoint interim U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation.
The provision to allow such action was placed in the anti-terror USA Patriot Act last year. Many lawmakers said they did not realize it until after the dismissals.
In an e-mail last year recently disclosed by the Justice Department, Kyle Sampson, then Gonzales ' chief of staff, urged the administration to exercise its new authority.
Sampson wrote it would allow the department to give "far less deference to home state senators, and thereby get (1) our preferred person appointed, and (2) do it far faster and more efficiently, at less political cost to the White House."
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