US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales faced dwindling support yesterday after an influential conservative said he should consider resignation amid controversy surrounding the dismissal of eight federal prosecutors.
Until now, pressure for US President George W. Bush's long-time ally to resign -- after evidence emerged implicating Gonzales in the firings of the attorneys for allegedly partisan reasons -- has come mainly from Democrats in Congress.
Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives and one of the most influential conservative US Republicans, told Fox News it was time for a new attorney general.
"I think the country, in fact, would be much better served to have a new team at the Justice Department, across the board," said Gingrich, a potential 2008 presidential candidate.
He said that he "cannot imagine" how Gonzales was going to be effective "for the rest of this administration."
The Senate Judiciary Committee is investigating why the US attorneys were fired, even as several of them were in the middle of sensitive corruption investigations, and to what extent Gonzales and the White House were involved.
Although US attorneys, who are powerful regional prosecutors appointed by the president, are often replaced at the start of a new presidential administration, it is not common to do so in mid-term.
"I think it is amazing that there's any doubt about the fact that [Gonzales and his aides] have totally mishandled this," Gingrich said.
Republican Senator Jon Kyl, speaking on ABC News, offered only lukewarm support for Gonzales and said he hoped concise testimony could restore faith in the Justice Department.
The attorney general has "got to clear up the conflicts and apparent conflicts in testimony between his chief of staff and some public comments that he's made in the past," Kyl said.
"The confusion and the ham-handed way that these firings were done certainly undermines the confidence of the Justice Department," he said. "And part of his effort to come up and testify before [Congress] will be to restore some of that confidence."
Gonzales is heavily focused on preparing for his April 17 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Washington Post and Newsweek magazine reported.
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