<->WASHINGTON (AP) – Attorney General Alberto Gonzales clung to his job as documents his Justice Department sent to Congress spelled out fears in the Bush administration that the dismissals of eight Federal Prosecutors might not stand up to scrutiny.

Particularly worrisome, according to some references in the 3,000 pages of e-mails and other material released late Monday, was the prospect of former prosecutor Bud Cummins testifying before Congress.

“I don’t think he should,” Mr. Gonzales’ chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, wrote in a Feb. 1 e-mail. “How would he answer: Did you resign voluntarily? Who told you? What did they say?”

Mr. Cummins was relieved as the Federal prosecutor in Little Rock, Ark., and replaced by Tim Griffin, a former assistant to top White House aide Karl Rove.

In his e-mail to colleagues, Mr. Sampson listed more questions that Mr. Cummins might have to answer if he were to testify to Congress: “Did you ever talk to Tim Griffin about his becoming U.S. attorney? What did Griffin say? Did Griffin ever talk about being AG appointed and avoiding Senate confirmation? Were you asked to resign because you were underperforming? If not, then why?”

The documents that Congress will focus on in the coming days show that Mr. 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, Mr. Roehrkasse said he was referring to Mr. Gonzales’ concerns over the firing of Bud Cummins in Little Rock, who he believed was dismissed because of performance issues. At the hearing, Mr. McNulty indicated Cummins was being replaced by a political ally.

Neither of the two most senior Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are stepping forward to endorse Mr. Gonzales, but likewise are not calling for his ouster. Senator Specter of Pennsylvania said he will reserve judgment until he gets all the facts. Senator Hatch of Utah has not given interviews on the subject, his spokesman said.

The White House still offered support for Mr. Gonzales on Monday, but spokesman Tony Snow said he didn’t know whether the embattled attorney general had contained the political damage. Mr. Snow said the White House hopes Mr. Gonzales will stay.

Inevitably, speculation turned to who might succeed him. Possible candidates include White House homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, former Solicitor General Ted Olson, Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein, federal appeals judge Laurence Silberman and PepsiCo attorney Larry Thompson, who was the government’s highest ranking black law enforcement official when he was deputy attorney general during Mr. Bush’s first term.

Former House Republican Leader Tom DeLay said Tuesday the scandal “is just a taste of what’s goingt to be like for the next two years.”

“And the Bush amdinistration sort of showed their weakenss when they got rid of Don Rumseld,” the Texan said on NBC’s “Today” show. “… This is a made up scandal. There is no evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever. … They ought to be fighting back.”

Among the e-mails released Monday was one Mr. McNulty received on Feb. 1 from Margaret Chiara, the chief Federal prosector in Grand Rapids, Mich.

“Why have I been asked to resign?” she asked.

Early this month, she wrote Mr. McNulty again, saying that “I respectfully request that you reconsider the rationale of poor performance as the basis for my dismissal. It is in our mutual interest to retract this erroneous explanation.”

She added: “Politics may not be a pleasant reason but the truth is compelling.”

Ms. Chiara asked Mr. McNulty to “endorse or otherwise encourage my selection” as assistant director at the Justice Department’s National Advocacy Center, which trains federal, state and local prosecutors.

In one uncomfortable exchange with Ms. Chiara, Mr. McNulty aide Mike Elston said, “our only choice is to continue to be truthful about this entire matter.”

“The word performance obviously has not set well with you and your colleagues,” Mr. Elston wrote. “By that word we only meant to convey that there were issues about policy, priorities and management/leadership that we felt were important to the Department’s effectiveness.”

The e-mails provide rich detail on what got some of the prosectors in trouble with their overseers in Washington.

John McKay, the prosecutor based in Seattle, circulated an Aug. 30, 2006, letter to Mr. McNulty that blasted the Justice Department for delays in creating a database allowing law enforcement to share information on terror cases. The letter was sent to at least some prosecutors.

In an e-mail to Mr. McNulty, Chuck Rosenberg, the prosecutor based in Alexandria, Va., said that other prosecutors “are chagrined and embarrassed” over Mr. McKay’s letter and “are probably happy to let him take the heat.”

In the run-up to the firings, Mr. McNulty questioned the dismissal of the cheif federal prosecutor in Nevada, Daniel Bogde. ‘I’m a little skittish about Bogden,” Mr. McNulty wrote in a Dec. 7 e-mail to Sampson. “He has been with DOJ since 1990 and, at age 50, has never had a job outside government.”

Still, Mr. 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.”

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