p>WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Department of Justice Monday delivered to Congress more than 3,000 pages of e-mails and other documentation regarding the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year.One set of the documents went to the House Judiciary Committee and another to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Both committees are holding hearings on the firings, which led several Democrats and Republicans to call for the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
The committees were to release the documents to the public, but it was unclear how long that process would take.
The Democrat-led committees requested the documents to try to bring more clarity to the process used by the department in deciding which of the federal prosecutors to fire and why. At the core of the issue is whether, as some Democrats allege, the department fired the attorneys for political reasons. (Posted 9:42 p.m.)
