Court TV Host: As the political scandal over Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' firing of eight federal prosecutors continues, discuss the story with Court TV's Fred Graham. Senate Democrats are pressing for subpoenas for administration officials, setting the way for a major confrontation with the White House. Will Attorney General Gonzales keep his job? Fred Graham is here to take your questions about the controversy.

Court TV Host: Welcome, Fred Graham, thanks for being our guest online today.

Fred Graham: Hello. There's a lot going on in Washington these days.

Court TV Host: Sen. Leahy said yesterday he would push for testimony under oath from a number of White House officials - what's happened since then?

Fred Graham: There's probably a lot of negotiations going on behind the scenes today. Fred Fielding, White House counsel, is probably suggesting answers in writing from Karl Rove, and Senator Leahy is demanding that Rove testify before TV cameras. They'll probably work out a compromise somewhere in the middle.

Question from tribe: Why is this any different than when most politicians clean house for a new administration?

Fred Graham: It's really not very different, except that President Bush has been so weakened by the Iraqi war that the Democrats have a feeling they can push him around. The loser is likely to be Attorney General Gonzales, who is probably half way on his way to Texas right now.

Question from meepaw: Fred, why is this different than when Clinton fired 83 lawyers? Don't tell me timing, because it's within the President's right to do so at any time.

Fred Graham: The biggest difference here is that the administration did a dumb thing. It said the U.S. attorneys were being removed because of performance deficiencies. Every one of those U.S. attorneys has a lot of friends, some of them quite powerful, who were offended at the suggestion that their friends, the U.S. attorneys, were incompetent. Then, when they released emails suggesting they were being removed for political reasons, it just made the White House look terrible. If they had insisted from the first that the President always has the power to remove U.S. attorneys at will, without giving a reason, that would have been the end of it.

Question from jen: Was there any truth to the incompetence?

Fred Graham: Most of the U.S. attorneys who were involved in this have very good reputations. Maybe a couple had questions regarding their performance. The point is, a president doesn't have to prove incompetence to remove a U.S. attorney. He has the power to just do it. But the Bush team didn't rely on that.

Question from JERRY: Fred: The question is this: how many of those 83 lawyers Clinton fired were told that it was because of their performance, when in reality it had nothing to do with their performance ratings? There is no analogy between the firings of other presidents and these firings because they keep changing their stories on the reason WHY they were fired. That's the difference?

Fred Graham: The underlying problem here is that there are questions about the competence of Attorney General Gonzales. It's a flaw in President Bush's tendency to staff the government with people who are loyal to him and not necessarily highly qualified for the job. When things go wrong, and they are really going wrong for Gonzales, there's simply not much confidence that Gonzales is handling this properly. It's hard to see how he can go on as Attorney General in the face of so many doubts about his competence.

Question from fiftymillionfrenchmen: Doesn't Bush's comments of "support" today - which basically said he wished Gonzales had handled it better - mean that he's leaving him to twist in the wind - and that he's basically got to resign?

Fred Graham: It's Bush's version of "I'm behind him 1000%" version of Presidential support. It does not appear that Gonzales was on top of a potentially troubling situation for the administration, so when questions are now being raised about his handling of the situation, he does not have a reservoir of support from people who are confident of his competence.

Question from Toodles: Mr Graham, who do you think would replace Gonzales?

Fred Graham: The interesting thing is going to be if Gonzales leaves office, will George Bush pick a nationally recognized figure in the legal profession to replace him, but a person who would not necessarily be a Bush loyalist, or would Bush pick another person who he trusts, but the rest of the country isn't sold on? You know, presidents really like to have attorneys general who they know well and know will protect them. And the trick is to get one who is absolutely trustworthy in the President's eyes, but who is also worthy of the job in the public's eyes. And just thinking about the lawyers who are really close to George Bush, I can't think right now of someone who would fill that second qualification.

Court TV Host: Any suggestions out there from anyone?

Fred Graham: Jimmy Carter picked Judge Griffin Bell, a man he didn't know well, but who the public trusted. He was a terrific attorney general. Gerald Ford picked Edward Levi, a college professor whom he had never met. Levi turned out to be one of the best Attorneys-General. So the trick is to pick a person of competence and strong character, and have faith that the person will also be trustworthy.

Question from gorbal: I think Carol Lam would do a great job ... Ooops.

Fred Graham: The unlikelihood of anything like that underscores the problem Bush will have if he decides to replace Gonzales. A lot of highly qualified lawyers would simply not fit into the Bush administration team. Maybe he'll decide to limp through the rest of his term with Gonzales in place.

Question from rose: Can the fired U.S. attorneys be reinstated? and who has the power to do so?

Fred Graham: Realistically, no president is going to turn tail in a situation like this. Maybe a Democratic president might pick one of them.

Question from tribe: Isn't this Bush's competence being questioned here...and not Gonzales? Isn't he another scapegoat?

Fred Graham: The danger here for the Democrats is that they may spend so much time running roughshod over the Republican side and embarrassing them daily that the public might get fed up with all this and say why don't you do something constructive?

Question from nancy: Are the fired U.S. Attys permitted to sue for wrongful termination? If so, more taxpayer dollars wasted?

Question from showsup: Could any of the dismissed attorneys sue the government on the grounds that their future careers could be tarnished?

Fred Graham: There's no right to sue the President, who has the right to dismiss them without giving any reason. As far as suing goes, they would have to allege libel against whoever questioned their competence and that's a loser in court.

Question from qwertyness383: Will this scandal also help the Democrats get more information about how national security "letters" were issued?

Fred Graham: That's another issue, and the Senate Judiciary Committee will take it up on a hearing on Wednesday. I'll be there - and perhaps we'll have a chat about it afterwards.

Court TV Host: It's a date! Thanks, Fred Graham, for being our guest today. See you Wednesday!