Crawford, Texas ? President Bush insisted Monday that embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales still has his support and denounced Democratic plans for a no-confidence vote as “pure political theater.”

“He has done nothing wrong,” Bush said in an impassioned defense of his longtime friend and adviser during a news conference at his Texas ranch.

Despite Bush’s comments, support for Gonzales is eroding, even in the president’s own party. The Senate is prepared to hold a no-confidence vote, possibly by week’s end, and five Republican senators have joined many Democrats in calling for Gonzales’ resignation.

The attorney general is under investigation by Congress for last year’s ousters of eight federal prosecutors.

He is also under fire for an alleged 2004 hospital visit, as White House counsel, to have the then-ailing Attorney General John Ashcroft certify the legality of Bush’s controversial warrantless eavesdropping program. The visit was detailed last week by former Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey.

In Washington, the Justice Department released a new batch of documents linked to the firings in anticipation of House testimony Wednesday by Monica Goodling, Gonzales’ former counsel and White House liaison.

The Justice Department has maintained the firings – planned in part by Goodling – targeted underperforming U.S. attorneys. But Democrats believe they were politically motivated and pointed Monday to e-mails between Goodling and White House political staffers about how to respond to the firestorm the dismissals created.

At one point, in mid-February, Goodling offered talking points and testimony by Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty as part of a White House effort to respond to a story in the online magazine Salon.

“Monica, other than the McNulty testimony, is any of this material public and can it be disseminated to Mark McKinnon?” White House aide Chris Oprison asked Goodling in a Feb. 15 e-mail. McKinnon was Bush’s political media consultant and now works for the presidential campaign of John McCain.

“It is info we have given to friendlies on the Hill,” Goodling responded. “It can all go.”

The president told the Democrats to get back to more pressing matters. He did not directly answer a question about whether he intended to keep Gonzales in office through the end of his presidency regardless of what the Senate does.