Lawmakers from both parties are pushing to strip Attorney General Alberto Gonzales of his power to name replacement U.S. attorneys for an indefinite period, although Republicans blocked that proposal in the Senate last week. The House Judiciary Committee is planning hearings on similar legislation in March.

"I don't know how they could have mishandled this any worse," said one of the fired U.S. prosecutors. "There always have traditionally been tensions between main Justice and U.S. attorneys in the districts," said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond. "But it does seem like there's an effort to centralize authority in Washington more than there has been in the past and in prior administrations."

Most of the firings came Dec. 7, when senior Justice Department official Michael Battle — a former U.S. attorney himself — called six prosecutors to inform them that they were being asked to resign. Battle was apologetic but offered little in the way of explanation, telling some that the order had come from "on high," according to sources familiar with the calls.

In addition to Ryan in San Francisco, the prosecutors who were called that day included Carol Lam in San Diego, John McKay in Seattle, David Iglesias in New Mexico, Daniel Bogden in Nevada and Paul Charlton in Arizona. Cummins had been informed of his dismissal last summer but stayed until December.

The breaking point for Cummins and the others was testimony earlier this month by Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, who told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the six U.S. attorneys in the West and Southwest had been dismissed for "performance-related" reasons and that Cummins had been pushed out to make room for Griffin.

That testimony "was the moment the gloves came off," said one fired prosecutor who declined to be identified.

Five of the dismissed prosecutors — Bogden, Charlton, Cummins, Iglesias and McKay — told reporters they were not given any reason for their firings and had not been told of any performance problems. Only one of the fired prosecutors, Ryan in San Francisco, faced substantive complaints about turnover or other management-related issues, officials said.

Justice Department officials in recent days have sought to clarify the performance comments, saying the dispute is mired in "semantics." The officials said McNulty was referring to policy differences between the Bush administration and some of its employees. One official also said the department had not made a list of replacements ahead of time.

"When you are setting national policy, you cannot have U.S. attorneys setting their own policies," said a Justice Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.