WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales confronted a fresh Republican call for his resignation Thursday as he struggled to survive a withering, bipartisan Senate attack on his credibility in the case of eight fired prosecutors.
"The best way to put this behind us is your resignation," Sen. Tom Coburn bluntly told Gonzales - one GOP conservative to another - at a daylong Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
Gonzales disagreed and told the Oklahoma senator he didn't know that his departure would put the controversy to rest. "I am committed to working with you in trying to restore the faith and confidence you need to work with me," he said.
The exchange punctuated a long day in the witness chair for the attorney general, who doggedly advanced a careful, lawyerly defense of the dismissals of the federal prosecutors. He readily admitted mistakes, yet told lawmakers he had "never sought to deceive them," and added he would make the same firings decision again.......
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