WASHINGTON - The chief White House lawyer floated the idea of firing all 93 US attorneys at the start of President Bush's second term, but the Justice Department objected and eventually recommended the eight dismissals that have generated a political firestorm two years later.

Presidential adviser Karl Rove speaks during a University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service lecture series Thursday, March 8, 2007, in Little Rock, Ark. Rove defended the Bush administration's firing of several US attorneys, stressing the positions serve at the pleasure of the president. [AP]

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Monday that then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers raised with an aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales the prospect of asking all chief federal district prosecutors to resign in 2004 as a logical way to start a new term with a new slate of US attorneys.

Perino also acknowledged Monday that complaints about the job performance of prosecutors occasionally came to the White House and were passed on to the Justice Department, perhaps including some informally from President Bush to Gonzales.

The US attorneys, the chief federal law enforcement officials in their various districts, typically are appointed to four-year terms by the president on the recommendation of state political leaders, but serve the pleasure of the president and can be dismissed at any time - like the attorney general and other Cabinet officers.

Democrats in Congress have charged that the eight dismissals announced last December were politically motivated and some of those fired have said they felt pressured by powerful Republicans in their home states to rush investigations of potential voter fraud involving Democrats.

Perino said Kyle Samson, the aid Miers contacted, objected that a wholesale change of prosecutors would be disruptive. She also said deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, the president's top political adviser, vaguely recalls telling Miers that he also thought firing all 93 was ill-advised.

The Justice Department, however, was working internally on a shorter list of firings, and submitted that list to the White House in late 2006, she said.

"At no time were names added or subtracted by the White House," Perino said. "We continue to believe that the decision to remove and replace US attorneys who serve at the pleasure of the president was perfectly appropriate and within administration's discretion. We stand by the Department of Justice's assertion that they were removed for performance and managerial reasons."

Dating back to mid-2004, the White House's legislative affairs, political affairs and chief of staff's office had received complaints from a variety of sources about the lack of vigorous prosecution of election fraud cases in various locations, including Philadelphia, Milwaukee and New Mexico, she said

Those complaints were passed on to the Justice Department or Mier's office.

"The president recalls hearing complaints about election fraud not being vigorously prosecuted and believes he may have informally mentioned it to the attorney general during a brief discussion on other Department of Justice matters," Perino said, adding that the conversation would have taken place in October 2006.

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