GOP wants answers on prosecutor firings

[Ron Burgundy]

AP - Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee say the Bush administration needs to be more straightforward about the White House's role in the dismissals of eight 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.

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.

On Monday, the Justice Department planned to turn over to Congress documents that could provide more details of the role agency officials — including Attorney General Alberto 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, former White House counsel Harriet Miers and other officials testify or will seek to assert executive privilege in preventing their appearance.

Leahy delayed a vote on issuing subpoenas until Thursday as the president's counsel, Fred 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 Rove and Miers testify openly.

"I want to see exactly what the White House response is," Specter said. "Maybe the White House will come back and say, 'We'll permit them to be interviewed and we'll give them all the records.'"

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 Bush's second term, and to some degree worked with Miers and former Gonzales chief of staff Kyle Sampson to get some prosecutors dismissed.

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.

Several Democrats and a few Republicans, including Sen. John Sununu (news, bio, voting record) of New Hampshire, have called for Gonzales to resign.

Leahy and Cornyn appeared on ABC's "This Week," while Specter spoke on "Fox News Sunday."

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070319/ap_on_go_co/fired_prosecutors [link]