Gonzales' hold on job looks tenuous

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' hold on his job grew more uncertain Monday as the Justice Department released e-mails with new details about the firings of federal prosecutors. The White House said it hoped Gonzales would survive the tumult.

Asked if the attorney general had contained the political damage from the dismissals of eight federal prosecutors, White House spokesman Tony Snow said, "I don't know."

Documents released Monday night by the Justice Department show that Gonzales was unhappy with how Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty explained the firings to the Senate Judiciary Committee in early February.

"The Attorney General is extremely upset with the stories on the US Attys this morning," Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse, who was traveling with Gonzales in South America at the time, wrote in a Feb. 7 e-mail. "He also thought some of the DAG's statements were inaccurate."

In a statement Monday night, Roehrkasse said he was referring to Gonzales' concerns over the firing of Bud Cummins in Little Rock, whom he believed was dismissed because of performance issues. At the hearing, McNulty indicated Cummins was being replaced by a political ally.

President Bush also was unhappy with the Justice Department's explanation of events. "The fact that both Republicans and Democrats feel like there was not straightforward communications troubles me," he said last Wednesday.

Snow declined Monday to predict how long Gonzales would stay in his job but reiterated President Bush's support of him. "No one's prophetic enough to know what the next 21 months hold," Snow said. "We hope he stays."

The new e-mails spell out some of the reasons behind the ousters and the heavy-handed manner in which they were carried out.

At one point, McNulty questioned the dismissal of U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden in Nevada. "I'm a little skittish about Bogden," McNulty wrote in a Dec. 7 e-mail to Gonzales' chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, two days before the firings. "He has been with DOJ since 1990 and, at age 50, has never had a job outside government."

Still, McNulty concluded: "I'll admit have not looked at his district's performance. Sorry to be raising this again/now; it was just on my mind last night and this morning."