6 of 7 fired U.S. attorneys had notched positive reviews

Bogden and Lam are among a handful of declared independents who worked as U.S. attorneys in the Bush administration. The rest of the group are viewed as moderate Republicans who have sometimes been at odds with their Washington bosses or more conservative Republicans.

In Seattle, for example, local Republicans complained to Gonzales about McKay's decision not to intervene in the disputed Washington gubernatorial race in 2006, which a Democrat eventually won by 129 votes.

Lam was the target of repeated complaints from conservative House Republicans, who asserted she was lax in enforcing immigration laws. The Justice Department also points to drops in the number of firearms cases filed by her office.

Charlton in Arizona clashed with the Justice Department's headquarters on at least two occasions over murder cases in which he opposed seeking the death penalty. He was overruled in both cases, officials said.

"There was no public controversy about any of these; any controversy was within the Justice Department," said J. Grant Woods, a Republican and former Arizona attorney general.

The cases that have gotten most of the attention among Democrats in Congress involve public-corruption investigations. In San Diego, Lam oversaw the probe that resulted in the guilty plea of then-Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a Republican. Two others connected to that case, including a former senior CIA official, were indicted two days before Lam left the job on Thursday.

Bogden in Nevada and Charlton in Arizona were also in the midst of investigations targeting current or former Republican members of Congress when they were fired. And in New Mexico, Iglesias's office had been examining alleged wrongdoing involving state Democrats.

Gonzales, McNulty and other Justice Department officials have strongly denied those investigations played a role in the dismissals.