By LAURIE KELLMAN Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - A confident Attorney General Alberto Gonzales endured another congressional grilling on the botched firings of federal prosecutors Thursday, seeming secure enough to call it a “somewhat liberating” experience.

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee fired tough questions at him-as their Senate counterparts had last month. But Gonzales seemed to weather the interrogation better this time around, and he didn’t hear any more calls for his resignation.

Just a few weeks ago, it seemed that only President Bush and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, had stood solidly behind him. But House Republicans at Thursday’s hearing echoed Gonzales’ call for Congress to move on.

Nevertheless, Democrats such as Reps. Maxine Waters of California and Robert Wexler of Florida shouted for more information about who decided which prosecutors to fire.

“You know who put them on the list but you wont tell us,” Wexler complained to Gonzales.

The attorney general said he had little to add to the story. “My feelings and recollections about this matter have not changed,” he said. Gonzales’ answers to the House panel were in sharp contrast to his testy responses to senators three weeks ago.

In contrast to Republican senators who shook their heads in exasperation at Gonzales’ failure to remember key details about the firings at the earlier hearing, House GOP lawmakers sprang to his defense.

“The list of accusations has mushroomed, but the evidence of wrongdoing has not,” said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the committee’s senior GOP member. “If there are no fish in this lake, we should reel in our lines of questions, dock our empty boat and turn to more pressing issues.”

Democrats showed no willingness to quit asking questions about whether White House officials ordered the firings of prosecutors not sufficiently loyal to the Bush administration. Democrats probed whether the Justice Department scuttled more prosecutors than the eight jettisoned over the winter, asking about prosecutor resignations in Los Angeles and Missouri.

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