Axing For It

From The New York Times: Democrats See a 'Document Gap' in Dismissals .

The dismissal of eight United States attorneys has elicited a long and ever-growing list of theories by Democrats on Capitol Hill about ulterior motives and suspicious coincidences. Now there is a new one: the document gap.

Democrats on Capitol Hill were privately urging reporters on Wednesday to press the Bush administration to explain why in the thousands of pages of e-mail messages and documents turned over to investigators, there is almost nothing from Nov. 16 to Dec. 7, the day seven of the firings occurred. In contrast, there are hundreds of pages from the weeks after the dismissals. One of the last e-mail messages before this period was sent by D. Kyle Sampson, then chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, to Harriet E. Miers, then the White House counsel, and includes a request that the White House approve the plan. “We’ll stand by for a green light from you,” said the Nov. 15 e-mail message.

From AP: Giuliani: Give Gonzales benefit of doubt.

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, a former U.S. attorney in New York, said Thursday that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should get "the benefit of the doubt" in the uproar over the firings of federal prosecutors.

"The president has addressed it," Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, said. "The attorney general's an honorable man. He's a decent man. He should be given a chance to explain and everybody should sort of give him the benefit of the doubt and allow him to explain."

Republicans and Democrats alike have questioned Gonzales' leadership and some have called for him to resign as Congress investigates whether the firings of eight prosecutors over the past year were politically motivated.

From ABC News Political Radar: Gonzales: 'I am not going to resign'.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told a crowd in St. Louis, Mo. that he's happy to be out of Washington - if just for a day. The embattled head of the Justice Department is standing firm amid calls for him to step down, telling reporters, "I'm not going to resign. I'm going to stay focused on protecting our kids," a nod to the Project Safe Childhood program, a Justice Department initiative against online predators and child exploitation.

UPDATE -- March 25: From FOX News: Feinstein Calls for Gonzales' Resignation.

The White House and a key Republican senator reaffirmed support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales even as more Democrats called for his resignation over the botched firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year.

"I believe he should step down," said Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on "FOX News Sunday." "I don't like saying this. This is not my natural personality at all. The nation is not well served by this."

Posted by Forkum at March 22, 2007 04:32 PM