With his top deputy going, will Gonzales be next?

WASHINGTON — Paul McNulty's resignation Monday from the Justice Department has invigorated key Democratic leaders calling for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to leave as well.

McNulty, who as deputy attorney general held the No. 2 spot at Justice, announced his resignation amid the widening scandal over the firings of nine U.S. attorneys, including Seattle's John McKay.

His exit this summer will mark the fourth resignation since the U.S. attorneys affair became public earlier this year.

McNulty did not release a public statement about his resignation, nor did he say if it was tied to the attorney firings.

He did send a three-paragraph letter to Gonzales, saying personal reasons were behind his decision to step down.

"The financial realities of college-age children and two decades of public service lead me to a long overdue transition in my career," McNulty wrote.

McNulty has admitted misleading Congress about the reasons for the attorney dismissals, and while he maintained he was out of the loop about the terminations, documents showed he attended a crucial meeting with Gonzales and others to review a final list of prosecutors to be fired.

He later said he was not fully briefed before his testimony to Congress.

"It seems ironic that Paul McNulty — who at least tried to level with the committee — goes, while Gonzales, who stonewalled the committee, is still in charge," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., a Judiciary Committee member who is pressing for a purge at Justice. "This administration owes us a lot better."

The House Democratic Caucus chairman, Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, said McNulty's departure would not make the scandal disappear. Rather, Democrats still want answers into who drew up the list of prosecutors to be fired and how much political direction came from the White House.

"Resignations are no substitute for the truth," Emanuel said.

A confirmation hearing for McNulty's successor would give Democrats additional leverage to make the White House answer questions about the firings.

"The administration should come clean so that we can begin the process of reconstituting the leadership of the Justice Department," Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement.

Gonzales, in his own statement, made no mention of the U.S. attorneys matter and praised McNulty, saying Justice "will be losing a dynamic and thoughtful leader" when he formally steps down later this summer. He said McNulty was instrumental in efforts against corporate fraud and "has made significant contributions to establishing the rule of law in Iraq."

McNulty was sworn in as deputy attorney general in March of last year — a job he already had held in an acting capacity for more than four months.

McNulty became a central figure in the furor over the attorney firings after he told the Senate Judiciary Committee in February that the White House played only a marginal role in the dismissals — a characterization that conflicted with documents later released by Justice and with subsequent testimony.

He also said most of the prosecutors were fired for "performance-related" reasons. That statement angered many of the former U.S. attorneys, most of whom had sterling evaluations and had remained largely silent about their departures.

McNulty's supporters believe he has been tarred by missteps and possible wrongdoing by former Gonzales aides, according to numerous Justice officials. McNulty has told congressional investigators that Kyle Sampson, Gonzales' then-chief of staff, and Monica Goodling, then the department's White House liaison, did not brief him fully before his testimony.

Sampson and Goodling have resigned. Michael Battle, the senior Justice official who carried out the prosecutor firings, has also quit, though he and Justice officials said his departure had been planned for some time.

The Associated Press, Bloomberg News and Los Angeles Times staff writer Richard B. Schmitt contributed

to this report.