White House Seeking Gonzales Replacements

Time Magazine's Mike Allen blogs at Politico (why not Time?) that the Bush administration is beginning to feel around for replacements for both Gonzales and McNulty.

Republican officials operating at the behest of the White House have begun seeking a possible successor to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales... according to party sources familiar with the discussions....

Republican sources also disclosed that it is now a virtual certainty that Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty, whose incomplete and inaccurate congressional testimony about the prosecutors helped precipitate the crisis, will also resign shortly. Officials were debating whether Gonzales and McNulty should depart at the same time or whether McNulty should go a day or two after Gonzales.

If you're juicing on this story, it's worth a read.

Also, Notice how support for Gonzales faded over the weekend as they were gathering the documents for the big document dump coming tonight. This tells me we may get something good.

Elsewhere: AP: Gonzales' hold on job grows uncertain

Later: And, McClatchy, "Support for Gonzales appears to collapse," which includes the line of the day.

"Congressional investigators took delivery of a new batch of Justice Department documents Monday. Their release was not expected to help Gonzales keep his job."

Why is that the line of the day? ABCNews:

New e-mails released this evening by the Justice Department reveal the depth of White House involvement in the discussions to fire eight U.S. attorneys last year. The thousands of pages of e-mails suggest the White House was involved in the plan from the beginning.

The e-mails detail conversations about attorneys targeted for dismissal. There are no e-mails from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who reportedly does not use e-mail, though the Justice Department says messages show some indication that Gonzales' former chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, kept the attorney general apprised.

Later: TPM has some of the early reporting on the dump.

Later: (WaPo) Bush affirms support for Gonzales, but Ed Henry reports that "The White House is going to protect Karl Rove before they're going to protect Al Gonzales."

As Ed Henry has a reputationg as WH stenographer, I'm prone to believe him on this one.