At one point in the hearing, Charles E. Schumer, a Democratic Senator from New York, asked Mr. Sampson, “Did you or did you not have in mind specific replacements for the dismissed U.S. Attorneys before they were asked to resign on December 7th, 2006.”

Mr. Sampson, who was testifying under oath, replied, “I personally did not. On December 7th, I did not have in mind any replacements for any of the seven who were asked to resign.”

The Justice Department said that the e-mail did not contradict Mr. Sampson’s sworn testimony. "We have consistently stated that, with the exception of Griffin, individuals were not pre-selected for any of the eight U.S. Attorney positions prior to asking the U. S. Attorneys to resign,” said Brian Roehrkasse, a Justice Department spokesman. “The list made public today had previously been shared with privately with Congress, and it in no way contradicts the Department prior statement. The list drafted 10 months before the December resignations reflects Kyle Sampson’s initial thoughts not pre-selected candidates by the Administration.”

Mr. Sampson’s lawyer, Bradford Berenson, also denied that the email contradicted Mr. Sampson’s testimony. "Kyle’s testimony regarding the consideration of replacements was entirely accurate. In December 2006, when the seven U.S. Attorneys were asked to step down, no specific candidate had been selected to replace any of them, and Kyle had none in mind. Some names had been tentatively suggested for discussion much earlier in the process, but by the time the decision to ask for the resignations was made none had been chosen to serve as a replacement.”

The documents turned over today brought the total number of e-mails and other records produced by the Justice Department to more than 6,000 pages. Justice Department officials said some documents were only recently discovered, including documents from officials who were not previously required to turn over their electronic files.

In some cases, the documents represented duplicate versions of documents already provided to the committees. Some of the document had been previously withheld by the Justice Department, but were available for review by congressional investigators.

The e-mail was among more than 2,000 pages of documents released today by the Justice Department as part of a continuing stream of e-mails and other internal records produced by the agency in the last month in response to requests by the House and Senate judiciary committees.