WASHINGTON - Amid bipartisan calls for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' resignation in a scandal over dismissals of eight federal prosecutors, the White House said Monday, "We hope he stays." When asked if Gonzales will serve for the rest of President Bush's term, White House press secretary Tony Snow said, "Well, we hope so."
Gonzales is under fire for the removal of eight U.S. attorneys and the bungled way their firings were explained to Congress.
Bush has expressed confidence in Gonzales and defended the removal of the prosecutors, but also voiced frustration that lawmakers were not provided straightforward information.
White House counselor Dan Bartlett said Monday that Bush has full confidence in Gonzales and hopes he serves the remainder of his term. He said Gonzales had not offered his resignation.
On Monday, the Justice Department planned to turn over to Congress documents that could provide more details of the role agency officials — including Gonzales — and top White House officials played in planning the prosecutors' dismissals.
The White House was also expected to announce this week whether it will let political strategist Karl Rove and other officials testify in congressional hearings.
"The president said he's got confidence in Al Gonzales," Snow said. "This is not fact gathering on whether to allow him to maintain his employment. We hope he stays."
It remains unclear whether the president will allow some of his key aides to testify in congressional hearings. White House counsel Fred Fielding heads to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to discuss the matter with Democratic and Republicans leaders of the House and Senate judiciary committees, Snow said.
"I think there's been sort of an expectation of brinksmanship when in fact they haven't really had those conversations," Snow said.
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee say the Bush administration needs to be more clear about the White House's role in the dismissals of the federal prosecutors.
"I've told the attorney general that I think this has been mishandled, that by giving inaccurate information ... at the outset, it's caused a real firestorm, and he better get the facts out fast," said Sen. John Cornyn (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, on Sunday.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record), D-Vt., the chairman of the committee, pledged to get the public testimony of White House officials involved in the case whether they want to testify or not.
Leahy delayed a vote on issuing subpoenas until Thursday as Fielding, sought to negotiate terms. But on Sunday, Leahy said he had not met Fielding nor was he particularly open to any compromises, such as a private briefing by the administration officials.
"I want testimony under oath. I am sick and tired of getting half-truths on this," Leahy said.
Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), the top Republican on the committee, said he had a long talk with Fielding on Friday and was reserving judgment. Specter said he would like to see White House political strategist Karl Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers testify openly.
White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore declined to comment about whether Rove and Miers would testify. Fielding was taking additional time to review the matter "given the importance of the issues under consideration and the presidential principles involved," she said.
At issue are the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, dismissals that Democrats say were politically motivated. Gonzales initially had asserted the firings were performance-related, not based on political considerations.
But e-mails between the Justice Department and the White House contradicted that assertion. The e-mails showed that Rove, as early as Jan. 6, 2005, questioned whether the U.S. attorneys should all be replaced at the start of President Bush's second term, and to some degree worked with Miers and former Gonzales chief of staff Kyle Sampson to get some prosecutors dismissed.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., cited memos Sunday showing that Sampson e-mailed the White House Counsel's office asking to discuss a "real problem with we have right now with Carol Lam," the U.S. attorney in San Diego. A day earlier, Feinstein said, Lam had notified the Justice Department of search warrants she obtained in investigating a defense contractor and former senior CIA official as part of the corruption case centered on former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif.
"All I'm saying, as the evidence comes in, as we look at the e-mails, there were clearly U.S. attorneys that were thorns in the side for one reason or another of the Justice Department," Feinstein said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation."
Both the Senate and House Judiciary committees planned votes on subpoenas for Rove and Miers. The Senate panel already has approved using subpoenas, if necessary, for Justice officials and J. Scott Jennings, deputy to White House political director Sara Taylor, who works for Rove.
Lawmakers also were scheduled to quiz Gonzales on Thursday about his agency's budget request in a hearing expected to generate some questions on the prosecutor scandal.
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