Gonzales Likely to Disappoint

"The conversation between Bush and Domenici occurred sometime after the election but before the firings of Iglesias and six other U.S. attorneys were announced on Dec. 7.

"Iglesias' name first showed up on a Nov. 15 list of federal prosecutors who would be asked to resign. It was not on a similar list prepared in October."

White House spokesmen directed reporters to Bush's mid-March statement about his involvement: "I did receive complaints about U.S. attorneys," he said at the time. "I specifically remember one time I went up to the Senate and senators were talking about the U.S. attorneys. I don't remember specific names being mentioned, but I did say to Al last year -- you're right, last fall -- I said, have you heard complaints about AGs, I have -- I mean, U.S. attorneys, excuse me -- and he said, I have. But I never brought up a specific case nor gave him specific instructions."

But on careful review, that's about as definitive as Bush's later insistence that there was " no indication that anybody did anything improper."

Or, as a reader of the Talking Points Memo blog suggests: "So a call from the President to the Attorney General in which he says, 'Pete Domenici called me this morning, says we gotta do something about that U.S. Attorney in New Mexico, Iglesias. Not doing his jobs, not bringing cases fast enough -- can you look into that, see what needs to be done?' That would fit within the White House denial."

Poll Watch

Jon Cohen and Jennifer Agiesta write for washingtonpost.com: "Two thirds of Americans, including a narrow majority of Republicans, see political motivations behind last year's firings of eight chief federal prosecutors. . . .

"With widespread public skepticism about the firings and low approval of how the attorney general has handled the matter -- 24 percent approved in this poll -- 45 percent of Americans said the attorney general should lose his job over the issue. Fewer, 39 percent, said he should remain in place; 16 percent expressed no opinion."

Here are those results.

E-Mail Watch

Laurie Kellman writes for the Associated Press: "Karl Rove's lawyer on Friday dismissed the notion that President Bush's chief political adviser intentionally deleted his own e-mails from a Republican-sponsored server, saying Rove believed the communications were being preserved in accordance with the law.

"The issue arose because the White House and Republican National Committee have said they may have lost e-mails from Rove and other administration officials. Democratically chaired congressional committees want those e-mails for their probe of the firings of eight federal prosecutors. . . .

"Any e-mails Rove deleted were the type of routine deletions people make to keep their inboxes orderly, Luskin said. He said Rove had no idea the e-mails were being deleted from the server, a central computer that managed the e-mail."

But Luskin's assertion would appear to contradict what House Democrats have said RNC lawyers told them, which is that even after the RNC stopped automatically deleting Rove's old e-mail in August 2004, all of his e-mail (not just some) continued to vanish.