Documents: U.S. Department of Justice considered prosecutors' political credentials

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration gave Congress 2,394 pages of documents in the fired-prosecutors probe on Friday, pushing the total so far to nearly 6,000.

Not enough, the Democrats say. At least not enough of the right ones.

Friday's batch showed that the Justice Department weighed political activism and membership in a conservative law group in evaluating the nation's federal prosecutors.

The documents also seemed to show the administration lining up replacements for the ousted prosecutors long before they were dismissed, contradicting Justice Department testimony.

But Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said more information is needed before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testifies on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.

The new papers "were not a complete response to our subpoena request," said Conyers, D-Mich., whose panel has been seeking unedited copies of documents that Justice has released with some details blacked out.

As for Friday's documents, one chart listed political credentials of 124 U.S. attorneys nominated since 2001. That could bolster Democrats' claims that the traditionally independent Justice Department has become more partisan during the Bush administration.

Congressional panels are investigating whether the firings last year of the U.S. attorneys were politically motivated.

"This is the chart that the AG requested," Monica Goodling, Justice's former liaison to the White House, wrote in a Feb. 12 e-mail to two other senior department officials. "I'll show it to him on the plane tomorrow, if he's interested."

Goodling resigned last week, refusing to testify to Congress about her role in the firings and citing her constitutional protection against self-incrimination.

The 2,394 pages of e-mails, schedules and memos released Friday included a few hand-scribbled pages of notes of reasons why some of the eight were ousted -- notes that Justice officials confirmed were written by Goodling.

Under Iglesias' name, Goodling wrote: "Domenici says he doesn't move cases" -- a reference to Sen. Pete Domenici, the six-term Republican from New Mexico accused of pressuring the prosecutor on a political corruption investigation. That allegation has been one of the factors driving Democrats' claims that the firings were politically motivated.

The documents included indications that senior department officials had replacements in mind for the outgoing prosecutors nearly a year before the ousters, seemingly contradicting testimony last month by Gonzales' former top aide.

The new batch of documents came amid questions about missing White House e-mails, including some from presidential counselor Karl Rove and other administration officials. The Democratic-controlled Congress is seeking those e-mails as evidence for its inquiry into the firings.