U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa said Wednesday he was "outraged" that executive branch officials recently gave a congressional hearing misleading and inaccurate testimony based on information that both the Department of Justice and the White House knew to be untrue.

"We can soft-pedal it a lot of ways, but Congress was lied to," Issa, R-Vista, said in a Wednesday phone interview from his Washington office.

Issa's 49th District covers large parts of North San Diego County, including Oceanside and Vista, as well as portions of Southwest Riverside County.

He said that if Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had any role in false information being given to Congress, "he should not be able to continue in his job."

At recent congressional hearings on the reasons for the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, including San Diego's Carol Lam, witnesses testified that the attorneys were fired because of performance issues and that Justice Department officials first began discussing the firings late last year.

However, a series of e-mails that were released Tuesday show that more than two years ago, Justice Department Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson recommended to White House counsel Harriet Miers that Lam and at least three other U.S. attorneys be axed for poor performance.

Issa has long been a critic of Lam's performance when it came to prosecuting human smugglers of illegal immigrants and had written letters to Lam and the attorney general's office complaining about the matter.

He said that because all U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president, he has no problem with the fact that the Bush administration decided to fire some of them. However, he said that he will not put up with being lied to.

"I am concerned that we have lost trust in the attorney general's office," Issa said. "Everybody who is part of us getting false testimony must go, up to and including the attorney general himself."

Issa said that his complaints about Lam started long before Lam's office began investigating the now-imprisoned former Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham. The former Navy ace pilot pleaded guilty in federal court late 2005 to taking more than $2.4 million in bribes in exchange for steering millions in government business to defense contractors. He is now serving an eight-year sentence in a federal prison near Tucson, Ariz.

Issa said Wednesday that he never made any complaints to Gonzales' office or to the White House relating to the Cunningham matter, and his only problem with Lam related to her prosecution rate on human smugglers and firearms cases.

On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she believes Lam's ouster was connected to Lam's prosecution of Cunningham, even though the Bush administration has denied it.

"In my heart of hearts I do, no matter what they say," Feinstein told The Associated Press.

- Contact staff writer William Finn Bennett at (760) 740-6426, or wbennett@nctimes.com.