WASHINGTON: Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty said Monday he will resign, the highest-ranking Bush administration casualty in the furor over the firing of U.S. attorneys, The Associated Press has learned.

McNulty, who has served 18 months as the Justice Department’s second-in-command, announced his plans at a closed-door meeting of U.S. attorneys in Texas, according to two senior department aides. He said he will remain at the department until this autumn or until the Senate approves a successor, the aides said.

McNulty irked his boss, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, by testifying in February that at least one of the fired prosecutors was ordered to make way for a protege of Karl Rove, President George W. Bush’s chief political adviser. Gonzales, who has resisted lawmakers’ calls to resign, maintains the firings were proper and rooted in the prosecutors’ lackluster performances.

Two other former Justice Department officials - Gonzales chief of staff Kyle Sampson and White House liaison Monica Goodling - also resigned in the last two months over the U.S. attorney firings.

It is unclear what McNulty will do after he leaves the Justice Department, where he held several high-ranking posts in current Bush administration and that of former President George H.W. Bush.

More at the International Herald Tribune