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Bush lawyers want to review messages on firings before Congress gets them. WASHINGTON -- President Bush's lawyers told the Republican National Committee on Tuesday not to turn over to Congress any e-mails related to the firings last year of eight U.S. attorneys before showing them to the White House.Democrats and Republican critics of the administration said the move suggests the White House is seeking to develop a strategy to block the release of the nongovernmental e-mails to congressional investigators by arguing that they're covered by executive privilege and not subject to review.Scott Stanzel, deputy White House press secretary, said the...

President Bush went to the Capitol on Thursday to rally Republicans behind his veto threat, confident that when push comes to shove, Democrats will remove their call for a withdrawal from Iraq from a bill to fund American troops in combat. Yet even as Bush spoke, he faced a second major front in his confrontation with Congress. The former chief of staff to embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told an oversight committee that Gonzales, contrary to his own statements, was deeply involved in the firing of eight federal prosecutors. As he has throughout his presidency, Bush is choosing a high-risk...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In the year before her dismissal as San Diego's U.S. attorney, Carol Lam's Justice Department bosses griped about her in snide e-mails and strategized about putting her "on a very short leash." Yet they gave no explanation when they finally kicked her out in December, Lam testified last month. The e-mails, among more than 3,000 pages of documents released this week by the House Judiciary Committee, suggest officials grew frustrated by a prosecutor who had her own priorities and views. In one exchange last July, a Justice Department official wrote that he was sad a top agency...

He defends Alberto Gonzales' firing of eight U.S. attorneys, rejects Democrats' demand that aides testify under oath. WASHINGTON -- President Bush fought back Tuesday in the controversy over eight fired federal prosecutors, defending Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, refusing to let his aides testify publicly and demanding that Democrats "drop the partisanship.""The initial response by Democrats, unfortunately, shows some appear more interested in scoring political points than in learning the facts," Bush said in a hastily arranged late-afternoon White House appearance. "There is no indication that anybody did anything improper."The president's counterattack put the White House and Congress on a collision...