"Even for Republicans this is a warning sign … saying there needs to be a change," said Rohrbacher. "Maybe the president should have an attorney general who is less a personal friend and more professional in his approach."

Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday cleared the way for subpoenas compelling five Justice Department officials and six of the federal prosecutors they fired to tell the story of the purge.

The voice vote to authorize the panel to issue subpoenas amounts to insurance against the possibility that Gonzales could retract his permission to let the aides testify voluntarily, or impose strict conditions.

The committee also postponed for a week a vote on whether to authorize subpoenas for President Bush's top aides who were involved in the eight firings, including political adviser Karl Rove, former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and deputy White House Counsel William K. Kelley.

The committee approved subpoena power for key Justice Department officials involved in the firings: Michael Elston, Kyle Sampson, Monica Goodling, Bill Mercer and Mike Battle.

Sampson, Gonzales' chief of staff, quit this week. Elston is staff chief to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, and Mercer is associate attorney general. Goodling is Gonzales' senior counsel and White House liaison, and Battle is the departing director of the office that oversees all 93 U.S. attorneys.

Gonzales has said he would allow the aides still at the Justice Department to testify voluntarily. It was unclear whether Sampson would agree to tell his story without a subpoena.

The panel also approved subpoena power for six of the eight U.S. attorneys fired since December. The six, all of whom testified last week under oath before the House Committee, are: Carol Lam of California, Bud Cummins of Arkansas, Paul Charlton of Arizona, John McKay of Washington state, Daniel Bogden of Nevada, David Iglesias of New Mexico.

The subpoenas are a warning to the embattled administration to follow through on promises in recent days by Gonzales and President Bush to tell the whole story of the firings, beyond the selected details that Associate Deputy Attorney General William Moschella revealed to the House panel last week.

"I want to obtain their cooperation and all relevant information," Leahy said. "But I want people to know that if I do not get cooperation, I will subpoena, we will have testimony under oath in this committee. We will find out what happened."

Gonzales' tenure has been tangled in controversies, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Orr.

As the president's chief lawyer, Gonzales sanctioned the widespread use of "warrantless wiretaps," allowing the government to snoop on Americans without court orders.

Citing an urgent need to prevent terror attacks, he also approved the so-called "torture memo," clearing the way for the CIA to use harsh methods in questioning al Qaeda captives, adds Orr.

Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire on Wednesday became the first Republican to call for Gonzales' ouster. That came just hours after Mr. Bush gave the attorney general, a longtime friend, a vote of confidence.

"I think the president should replace him," Sununu said in an interview. "I think the attorney general should be fired."

Although some Republicans have been tepid in their support for the attorney general, Sununu was the first to go so far in the uproar over the Justice Department's firing of the attorneys and its response to congressional questions, plus a separate report that the administration abused its power to secretly investigate suspected terrorists.

The White House issued a curt response to Sununu's remarks.

"We're disappointed, obviously," White House spokesman Tony Snow said. A Justice Department spokeswoman refused to comment.

Speaking to reporters in Mexico before returning to Washington, Mr. Bush expressed confidence in Gonzales and defended the firings. "What Al did and what the Justice Department did was appropriate," the president said.

Still, Mr. Bush left himself room to sack the attorney general.

"What was mishandled was the explanation of the cases to the Congress," Mr. Bush said. "And Al's got work to do up there."

Gonzales, expected to meet with lawmakers this week, has been fending off Democratic demands that he resign over the ousters of the eight U.S. attorneys, which Democrats have characterized as a politically motivated purge.

"We want Congress to know, to understand what happened here," Gonzales said. "We'll work it out."

Mr. Bush isn't the first president to fire U.S. attorneys and replace them with his own appointments, reports CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante. At the beginning of his first term, President Clinton cleaned house, ousting all 93 U.S. attorneys, which is not unusual; they serve at the pleasure of the president. The difference this time is the charge that politics apparently played a role in their dismissal.

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GOP Support for Gonzales Erodes Further

By Laurie Kellman

The Associated Press

Thursday 15 March 2007

Republican support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales eroded further Thursday amid an intensifying furor over his role in federal prosecutor firings, as new e-mails surfaced indicating that top White House political adviser Karl Rove had an early hand in the dismissals.

A Senate panel approved subpoenas for Justice Department officials Thursday in a probe of the firings. Subpoenas for President Bush's top aides, including Rove, could come next week.

"The new e-mails show conclusively that Karl Rove was in the middle of this mess from the beginning," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., adding that the revelations make it "imperative" that Rove testify under oath before Congress.

A White House e-mail to David Leitch, then deputy counsel to the president, dated Jan. 6, 2005, regarding U.S. attorneys says Rove was questioning "whether we were going to allow all to stay, request resignations from all and accept only some of them, or selectively replace them."

In a reply three days later, Gonzales' chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, tells Leitch that "we would like to replace 15-20 percent of the current U.S. attorneys — the underperforming ones."

"The vast majority of U.S. attorneys, 80-85 percent, I would guess, are doing a great job, are loyal Bushies, etc., etc.," Sampson's e-mail says. Later in the e-mail, Sampson wrote that home-state senators may resist replacing prosecutors "they recommended. That said, if Karl thinks there would be political will to do it, then so do I."

Sampson resigned Monday night as Gonzales' staff chief. The e-mails were released Thursday by the Justice Department.

Earlier Thursday, Rove said the controversy was being fueled by "superheated political rhetoric," adding that there was no similar uproar when President Clinton dismissed all 93 U.S. attorneys at the beginning of his first term.

"We're at a point where people want to play politics with it. That's fine," Rove told students at a journalism seminar at Troy University in Alabama.

White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said the newly released e-mail trail "does not directly contradict, nor is it inconsistent with what we've said."

Rove had a "vague recollection" that it was then-White House counsel Harriet Miers who first raised the idea of replacing all 93 federal prosecutors at the beginning of Bush's second term "and that he thought it was a bad idea and would be unwise."

One Republican, Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire, has publicly urged President Bush to fire Gonzales. Still another GOP lawmaker, this one in the House and not ready to speak out publicly, said Thursday he planned to call next week for Gonzales to step down. And Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., said Thursday Gonzales had lost the confidence of Congress.

"The senator believes it would be helpful to have an attorney general that Congress can have more confidence in," said Smith's spokesman, R.C. Hammond.

Other Republican lawmakers spent Thursday urging colleagues to refrain from joining that chorus until they hear more from Gonzales and his aides directly.

"Let's give them a chance to respond before we get tough," said Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee. "I'm prepared to get tough, but I want to get tough with a basis for doing so."

The panel wants to question Gonzales about statements made by his deputies that the firings were not efforts to install new prosecutors without Senate confirmation. An e-mail released this week revealed the attorney general's top aide discussing how to "run out the clock" by invoking a new provision in the Patriot Act that would allow such indefinite appointments.

Any answers may come too late to save Gonzales' job, some lawmakers say.

One Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee who spoke on condition of anonymity because he has not yet announced his position, said Thursday he has told White House officials that Gonzales stands no chance. The lawmaker said he expects to be among other Republicans calling for Gonzales' resignation after the attorney general tells his story on Capitol Hill.

Regardless of Gonzales' fate, questions will be asked under oath of his aides and most of the prosecutors he fired. The Judiciary Committee approved subpoenas for five Justice officials Thursday as a safeguard against the attorney general's retracting his permission for them to testify voluntarily.

They are Sampson; Michael Elston, top aide to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty; Associate Attorney General Bill Mercer; Monica Goodling, Gonzales' senior counsel and White House liaison; and Mike Battle, departing director of the office that oversees all 93 U.S. attorneys.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the subpoena authorizations were not needed because Gonzales had agreed to make his aides available.

The Senate panel also authorized subpoenas for six of the eight fired U.S. attorneys. The six — Carol Lam of San Diego, Bud Cummins of Arkansas, Paul Charlton of Arizona, John McKay of Seattle, Daniel Bogden of Nevada and David Iglesias of New Mexico — testified under subpoena last week before the House Judiciary Committee.

Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., delayed until March 22 a vote on subpoenas for Rove; Miers and her deputy, William K. Kelley. E-mails released this week either authored by or mentioning Rove, Miers and Kelley appeared to contradict the administration's contention that Bush's staff had only limited involvement in the purge.

It's customary for new presidents to bring in their own team of prosecutors when they take office. Democrats say the Bush administration singled out some of its own nominees because they chafed at the president's priorities and efforts by Republican members of Congress and others to influence political corruption investigations.

"Eight U.S. attorneys who did not play ball with the political agenda of this administration were dropped from the team," said Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois. "We have a right to ask what that political agenda was and whether or not it was a reasonable firing and dismissal."

Some of the fired prosecutors testified last week that lawmakers leaned on them to speed up prosecutions that would hurt Democrats. Others said they felt intimidated by the agency to stay quiet. All of them were miffed by the Justice Department's contention that the dismissals were performance-related. The department then fired back, enumerating publicly what were described as performance problems for each of the fired prosecutors.

Bush on Wednesday defended the firings but criticized how they were explained to Congress. The president said he still had confidence in the attorney general but implied that his support was conditioned on Gonzales patching things up with lawmakers.

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Associated Press writers Lara Jakes Jordan and Julie Hirschfeld Davis contributed to this report.

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