WASHINGTON (AP) – Republican support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales eroded further Thursday amid an intensifying furor over his role in federal prosecutor firings, as new e-mails surfaced indicating that top White House political adviser Karl Rove had an early hand in the dismissals.

A Senate panel approved subpoenas for Justice Department officials Thursday in a probe of the firings. Subpoenas for President Bush’s top aides, including Rove, could come next week.

“The new e-mails show conclusively that Karl Rove was in the middle of this mess from the beginning,” said Senator Schumer, Democrat of New York, adding that the revelations make it “imperative” that Rove testify under oath before Congress.

A White House e-mail to David Leitch, then deputy counsel to the president, dated Jan. 6, 2005, regarding Federal prosecutors says Mr. Rove was questioning “whether we were going to allow all to stay, request resignations from all and accept only some of them, or selectively replace them.”

In a reply three days later, Mr. Gonzales’ chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, tells Mr. Leitch that “we would like to replace 15-20 percent of the current U.S. attorneys – the underperforming ones.”

“The vast majority of U.S. attorneys, 80-85 percent_I would guess, are doing a great job, are loyal Bushies, etc., etc.,” Mr. Sampson’s e-mail says. Later in the e-mail, Mr. Sampson wrote that home-state senators may resist replacing prosecutors “they recommended. That said, if Karl thinks there would be political will to do it, then so do I.”

Mr. Sampson resigned Monday night as Mr. Gonzales’ staff chief. The e-mails were released Thursday by the Justice Department.

Earlier Thursday, Mr. Rove said the controversy was being fueled by “superheated political rhetoric,” adding that there was no similar uproar when President Clinton dismissed all 93 federal prosecutors at the beginning of his first term.

“We’re at a point where people want to play politics with it. That’s fine,” Mr. Rove told students at a journalism seminar at Troy University in Alabama.

White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said the newly released e-mail trail “does not directly contradict, nor is it inconsistent with what we’ve said.”

Mr. Rove had a “vague recollection” that it was then-White House counsel Harriet Miers who first raised the idea of replacing all 93 federal prosecutors at the beginning of Bush’s second term “and that he thought it was a bad idea and would be unwise.”

One Republican, Senator Sununu of New Hampshire, has publicly urged President Bush to fire Mr. Gonzales. Still another GOP lawmaker, this one in the House and not ready to speak out publicly, said Thursday he planned to call next week for Mr. Gonzales to step down. And Senator Smith, Republican of Oregon, said Thursday Mr. Gonzales had lost the confidence of Congress.

“The senator believes it would be helpful to have an attorney general that Congress can have more confidence in,” said Mr. Smith’s spokesman, R.C. Hammond.

Other Republican lawmakers spent Thursday urging colleagues to refrain from joining that chorus until they hear more from Mr. Gonzales and his aides directly.

“Let’s give them a chance to respond before we get tough,” said Senator Specter of Pennsylvania, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee. “I’m prepared to get tough, but I want to get tough with a basis for doing so.”

The panel wants to question Gonzales about statements made by his deputies that the firings were not efforts to install new prosecutors without Senate confirmation. An e-mail released this week revealed the attorney general’s top aide discussing how to “run out the clock” by invoking a new provision in the Patriot Act that would allow such indefinite appointments.

Any answers may come too late to save Mr. Gonzales’ job, some lawmakers say.

One Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee who spoke on condition of anonymity because he has not yet announced his position, said Thursday he has told White House officials that Mr. Gonzales stands no chance. The lawmaker said he expects to be among other Republicans calling for Mr. Gonzales’ resignation after the attorney general tells his story on Capitol Hill.

Regardless of Mr. Gonzales’ fate, questions will be asked under oath of his aides and most of the prosecutors he fired. The Judiciary Committee approved subpoenas for five Justice officials Thursday as a safeguard against the attorney general’s retracting his permission for them to testify voluntarily.

They are Mr. Sampson; Michael Elston, top aide to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty; Associate Attorney General Bill Mercer; Monica Goodling, Mr. Gonzales’ senior counsel and White House liaison; and Mike Battle, departing director of the office that oversees all 93 U.S. attorneys.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the subpoena authorizations were not needed because Mr. Gonzales had agreed to make his aides available.

The Senate panel also authorized subpoenas for six of the eight fired prosecutors. The six – Carol Lam of San Diego, Bud Cummins of Arkansas, Paul Charlton of Arizona, John McKay of Seattle, Daniel Bogden of Nevada and David Iglesias of New Mexico – testified under subpoena last week before the House Judiciary Committee.

Judiciary Chairman Senator Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, delayed until March 22 a vote on subpoenas for Mr. Rove; Ms. Miers and her deputy, William K. Kelley. E-mails released this week either authored by or mentioning Mr. Rove, Ms. Miers and Mr. Kelley appeared to contradict the administration’s contention that Bush’s staff had only limited involvement in the purge.

It’s customary for new presidents to bring in their own team of prosecutors when they take office. Democrats say the Bush administration singled out some of its own nominees because they chafed at the president’s priorities and efforts by Republican members of Congress and others to influence political corruption investigations.

“Eight U.S. attorneys who did not play ball with the political agenda of this administration were dropped from the team,” said Senator Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic whip. “We have a right to ask what that political agenda was and whether or not it was a reasonable firing and dismissal.”

Some of the fired prosecutors testified last week that lawmakers leaned on them to speed up prosecutions that would hurt Democrats. Others said they felt intimidated by the agency to stay quiet. All of them were miffed by the Justice Department’s contention that the dismissals were performance-related. The department then fired back, enumerating publicly what were described as performance problems for each of the fired prosecutors.

Mr. Bush on Wednesday defended the firings but criticized how they were explained to Congress. The president said he still had confidence in the attorney general but implied that his support was conditioned on Mr. Gonzales patching things up with lawmakers.

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Associated Press writers Lara Jakes Jordan and Julie Hirschfeld Davis contributed to this report.