March 20 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush gave embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales assurances he wants him to remain on the job, the White House said today as the administration mounted a counterattack aimed at quelling the controversy over the firing of eight federal prosecutors.

In an early morning phone call to Gonzales, ``the president reaffirmed his strong backing of the attorney general,'' said spokeswoman Dana Perino. Reports that Bush is looking for a replacement of the attorney general are ``just flat false,'' White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters. ``The White House is not calling for the ouster of anybody.''

The president urged Gonzales to fight efforts to force him out, said a Justice Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Late last night, the Justice Department gave Congress e- mails that show the fired U.S. attorneys were the target of complaints and had policy disputes with officials in Washington. The counteroffensive came as lawmakers continued to call for Gonzales, 51, to step down and congressional investigations heated up. Two Democratic-controlled congressional committees are probing whether the administration acted out of political motives and used the firings to interfere with criminal investigations.

Among about 3,000 pages of Justice Department documents delivered to Congress last night were e-mails describing a feud between fired San Diego prosecutor Carol Lam and Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican who complained that she hadn't aggressively enforced immigration laws along the Mexican border.

Cunningham Prosecution

Democrats have questioned whether Lam was fired for leading the investigation of Randall H. ``Duke'' Cunningham, a former California Republican congressman who pleaded guilty to accepting millions of dollars in bribes to help companies get defense contracts.

A House Judiciary subcommittee announced plans to vote tomorrow to compel testimony by five current and former administration officials, including Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, and former White House counsel Harriet Miers.

The Senate, meanwhile, voted 94-2 to repeal a year-old law that Democrats argued gave Gonzales too much power to name temporary U.S. prosecutors without the Senate's consent. The legislation would restore a 1986 law that allowed for court- appointment of U.S. attorneys if the president didn't nominate a replacement to fill a vacancy.

Latest Batch

The latest batch of e-mails also includes an exchange showing dismay in Washington that Kevin Ryan, former U.S. attorney in San Francisco, had issued a press release about new sentencing guidelines for possessing steroids. Ryan's office investigated steroid use by athletes and whether San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds lied under oath to a grand jury.

``Not sure that this was particularly helpful,'' Michael Elston, a Justice Department official wrote Ryan in a March 29, 2006, e-mail. ``After our conversations, I am fairly surprised that you would not consult with me'' before ``issuing a press release on something that has nothing to do with your office.''

Elston complained that publicizing the ``emergency'' steroid guidelines issued by the U.S. Sentencing Commission ``actually harms our ability to ensure'' they become permanent.

In Lam's case, the documents included a heated correspondence she had with Issa over his charges that she wasn't aggressive enough in prosecuting alien smuggling across one of the busiest parts of the U.S.-Mexico border. A series of e-mails dealt with her response to an Associated Press report in May 2006 that U.S. Border Patrol agents were ``demoralized'' and with Issa's criticisms of her office on CNN's ``Lou Dobbs Tonight.''

`Unauthorized Version'

In a May 23 memo to Gonzales, Lam said a Border Patrol report cited by Issa in the broadcast ``was actually an altered and unauthorized version of an actual intelligence report'' that ``contained editorial comments and conclusions that were never seen by or authorized by Border Patrol management.'' Lam issued a statement saying that Issa ``has been misled.''

Issa replied in a May 24 letter to Lam, saying, ``your statement misses the mark and exhibits a willful disregard'' of smuggling cases that were never prosecuted.

Today, Issa's spokesman, Frederick Hill, said Lam's handling of the matter didn't appease the congressman. ``What the e-mails and documents released by the Justice Department show is that there was an effort by the department to cover for Carol Lam's deficiencies in prosecuting border crimes,'' Hill said.

Another Republican critic of immigration enforcement, Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo, today joined those calling for Gonzales's resignation. ``Gonzales has repeatedly shown that he is unwilling to enforce the law and unable to effectively manage the department,'' Tancredo said in a statement.

Subject of Ridicule

Lam was the subject of ridicule in a July 8, 2006, e-mail written by William Mercer, then a deputy to Paul McNulty, the Justice Department's second-ranking official.

Lam ``just won't say, `OK. You got me. You're right, I've ignored national priorities and obvious local needs. Shoot, my production is more hideous than I realized,''' Mercer wrote to Elston, McNulty's chief of staff.

``Carol Lam is sad,'' Elston noted in his reply.

Yesterday, a report that the administration was searching for replacements for Gonzales was carried by online service Politico.com. Citing Republican ``party sources,'' it said the potential replacements for Gonzales include Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Bush's anti-terrorism coordinator Frances Townsend.

``I've checked into those rumors and they are untrue,'' Perino told Bloomberg News.

Bush has defended the firings while criticizing how Gonzales handled them. He said last week that he was ``not happy about it'' and directed Gonzales to explain himself to Congress.

Poor Performance

Lawmakers in both parties complained that statements by Justice Department officials that the firings were due to poor performance had unfairly stained the reputations of the prosecutors.

One newly released e-mail suggested that Gonzales was dismayed because McNulty, in testifying before Congress last month, had failed to come down hard enough on one fired prosecutor: H.E. Bud Cummins of Arkansas.

Brian Roehrkasse, a Justice Department spokesman, wrote in an e-mail to a colleague on Feb. 7 that Gonzales was ``extremely upset'' with news accounts of McNulty's testimony and believed some of his deputy's statements ``were inaccurate.''

In a statement last night, Roehrkasse explained that the cause of Gonzales's consternation was his belief that Cummins was removed in part for ``performance considerations'' while McNulty had left the impression that Cummins was fired without cause.

Asked to Step Down

While McNulty testified that the Justice Department asked most of the prosecutors to step down for unspecified performance reasons, he said Cummins was fired to create an opening for an ex-aide to Rove.

Another fired prosecutor, Margaret Chiara in Grand Rapids, Michigan, urged McNulty in a March 4 e-mail to ``reconsider the rationale of poor performance as the basis'' for her dismissal. ``Please simply state that a presidentially appointed position is not an entitlement,'' she wrote. ``Politics may not be a pleasant reason but the truth is compelling.'

McNulty replied that ``we only meant to convey that there were issues about policy, priorities and management/leadership that we felt were important to the department's effectiveness.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Robert Schmidt in Washington at rschmidt5@bloomberg.net; James Rowley in Washington at jarowley@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 20, 2007 13:20 EDT