The US Senate was to hold a no-confidence debate on US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales yesterday, despite the White House's continued support for him in a controversy over the firings of US prosecutors.
As the debate loomed, White House spokesman Tony Snow insisted US President George W. Bush wanted to keep Gonzales in the job on Sunday.
Yesterday's discussion came almost a week after a former White House aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was sentenced to jail for perjury and weeks after Bush's former deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz agreed to resign as president of the World Bank over a favoritism scandal.
The Senate is now to act on a motion of no-confidence in Gonzales, who faces pressure to resign over allegations that he fired eight US prosecutors because they showed insufficient loyalty to Bush's Republican Party.
Asked whether Bush's backing for Gonzales would be shaken if Republicans rounded on him by supporting the no-confidence vote, Snow said: "Not a bit. Purely symbolic vote."
"It is obvious that the president has the right to hire and fire people who serve at his pleasure," Snow said. "Nobody's found anything untoward in terms of what happened."
Democratic Senator Richard Durbin however questioned why Bush was willing to back the unpopular Gonzales while agreeing to replace General Peter Pace as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to avoid a divisive showdown in Congress focusing on the Iraq war.
"Here's a man who has ... said things on Capitol Hill which he's had to recant and staff people said things were being done at the Department of Justice that shouldn't be," Durbin said. "And the president is willing to stand by his man."
Bush has resisted pressure for Gonzales to go, including from several lawmakers in his own party. The row began in March when evidence from e-mails and testimony from a top former aide linked Gonzales to the sackings.
Bush last month expressed confidence in Gonzales, saying the Department of Justice was investigating the sackings of the federal attorneys last year.
The supposedly "symbolic" gesture follows some real censures of former top officials of the Bush administration.
Wolfowitz is to step down from the World Bank on June 30 after damaging allegations of favoritism involving his girlfriend, a bank employee.
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