WASHINGTON — The White House suggested two years ago that the Justice Department fire all 93 U.S. attorneys, a proposal that eventually resulted in the dismissals of eight prosecutors carried out last year, according to e-mails and internal documents that the administration will provide to Congress today.

The dismissals took place after President Bush told Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that he had received complaints that some prosecutors had not energetically pursued voter-fraud investigations, according to a White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino.

Mr. Gonzales approved the idea of firing a smaller group of U.S. attorneys shortly after taking office in February 2005, but he left it to an aide, Kyle Sampson, to carry out most of the details, according to interviews and documents reviewed yesterday by the Washington Post.

Mr. Sampson resigned yesterday, officials said, after acknowledging he did not tell other Justice officials who testified to Congress about the extent of his communications with the White House, leading them to provide incomplete information in their testimony to lawmakers.

Congress has requested the documents as part of an investigation by both Judiciary committees into whether the firings were politically motivated. While it is unclear whether the documents answer that question, they show that the White House and other administration officials were more deeply involved in the dismissals, and at an earlier date, than they have acknowledged.

Seven U.S. attorneys were fired December 7 and another was fired months earlier, with little explanation from the Justice Department. Several former prosecutors have since alleged intimidation, including improper telephone calls from Republican lawmakers or their aides, and have alleged threats of retaliation by a Justice Department official.

Administration officials have repeatedly portrayed the firings as a routine personnel matter, designed primarily to rid the department of a handful of poor performers.

But the documents and interviews indicate that the idea of the firings originated at least two years ago, in February 2005, with a former White House counsel, Harriet Miers, suggesting that all prosecutors be dismissed and replaced with new personnel.

Over the next two years, Mr. Bush, top adviser Karl Rove, and other White House officials also forwarded complaints that U.S. attorneys were not doing enough to prosecute certain crimes such as voter fraud, according to officials and documents.

Ms. Perino said that “it doesn’t appear the president was told about a list nor shown a list” of U.S. attorneys at any point in the discussions. She said Mr. Rove had an early conversation with Ms. Miers about the idea of firing all chief prosecutors and did not think it was wise.

White House officials said a variety of senior officials — including Mr. Rove and ultimately the president — passed on to the Justice Department concerns they had received starting in 2004 that U.S. attorneys were not doing enough to prosecute certain crimes, especially voter fraud. Mr. Bush personally mentioned such complaints to Mr. Gonzales in a conversation in October 2006, Ms. Perino said.

“He believes informally he may have mentioned it to the AG during the meeting discussing other matters,” Ms. Perino said. “White House officials including the president did not direct DOJ to take any specific action with regards to any specific U.S. attorney.”

The e-mails also show that Mr. Rove was interested in the appointment of his former colleague, Tim Griffin, as an Arkansas prosecutor. Mr. Sampson wrote in one e-mail that “getting him appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, etc.”

Administration officials say they are braced for a new round of criticism today from lawmakers who may feel misled by testimony in recent weeks from Mr. Gonzales, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, and the principal associate deputy attorney general, William Moschella. Several Democrats, including Senator Schumer, have asked for Mr. Gonzales’s resignation in recent days.

The documents, which include numerous e-mails among Mr. Sampson, Ms. Miers, and others in the White House counsel’s office, show the firings plan dated from February 2005, when Ms. Miers’s office brought up the question of whether U.S. attorneys should be replaced with new Republican appointees for Mr. Bush’s second term.

That proposal was immediately rejected by Mr. Gonzales as impractical and disruptive, Justice officials said, but it led Mr. Sampson to send an e-mail to Ms. Miers in March 2005 ranking all 93 U.S. attorneys. Strong performers “exhibited loyalty” to the administration; low performers were “weak U.S. attorneys who have been ineffectual managers and prosecutors, chafed against Administration initiatives, etc.”; a third group merited no opinion.

Only three of those eventually fired were given low rankings: Margaret Chiara in Grand Rapids, Mich., Bud Cummins in Little Rock, Ark., and Carol Lam in San Diego. Two were given strong evaluations: David Iglesias in Albuquerque, N.M., who has alleged political interference from Republican lawmakers, and Kevin Ryan in San Francisco, whose firing has generated few complaints because of widespread management and morale problems in his office.

Ten months later, in January 2006, Mr. Sampson sent to the White House the first list of seven potential candidates for dismissal, including four who ultimately were dismissed at year’s end: Ms. Chiara, Mr. Cummins, Ms. Lam, and Mr. Ryan. The list also recommended Mr. Griffin and other replacements, most of whom were edited from the documents viewed by the Post.

In September, Mr. Sampson produced another list of firing candidates, telling the White House that Mr. Cummins was “in the process of being pushed out” and providing the names of eight others who “we should consider pushing out.” Five of the candidates on that list were fired in December; three others were spared.

Mr. Iglesias, the New Mexico prosecutor, was not on the list in September. Justice officials said Mr. Sampson added Mr. Iglesias in October, based in part on complaints from Senator Domenici and other New Mexico Republicans that he was not prosecuting enough voter-fraud cases.

Mr. Sampson also strongly urged bypassing Congress in naming replacements, using a little-known power slipped into the renewal of the USA Patriot Act in March 2006 that allows the attorney general to name interim replacements without Senate confirmation.

“I am only in favor of executing on a plan to push some USAs out if we really are ready and willing to put in the time necessary to select candidates and get them appointed,” Mr. Sampson wrote in a September 17, 2006, memo to Ms. Miers. “It will be counterproductive to DOJ operations if we push USAs out and then don’t have replacements ready to roll immediately.

“I strongly recommend that as a matter of administration, we utilize the new statutory provisions that authorize the AG to make USA appointments.” By avoiding Senate confirmation, he added, “we can give far less deference to home state senators and thereby get 1.) our preferred person appointed and 2.) do it far faster and more efficiently at less political costs to the White House.”

Ms. Miers thanked Mr. Sampson for the idea. “Kyle thanks for this. I have not forgotten I need to follow up on the info. But things have been crazy,” she wrote.

One e-mail from Ms. Miers’s deputy, William Kelley, on the day of the December 7 firings said Mr. Domenici’s chief of staff “is happy as a clam” about Mr. Iglesias.

Mr. Sampson wrote in an e-mail a week later: “Domenici is going to send over names tomorrow (not even waiting for Iglesias’s body to cool).”

The documents also provide new details about the case of Mr. Griffin, a former Rove aide and Republican National Committee researcher who was named interim U.S. attorney in Little Rock in December.

E-mails show Justice officials discussed bypassing the two Democratic senators in Arkansas, who normally would have had input into the appointment, as early as last August. By mid-December, Mr. Sampson was suggesting that Mr. Gonzales exercise his newfound appointment authority to put Mr. Griffin in place until the end of Mr. Bush’s term.

“There is some risk that we’ll lose the authority, but if we don’t ever exercise it then what’s the point of having it?” Mr. Sampson wrote to a White House aide. “(I’m not 100 percent sure that Tim was the guy on which to test drive this authority, but know that getting him appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, etc.)”