The Kansas City Star's Dave Helling got a quote (sub.req.)from 'resigned' US Attorney Todd Graves.

“I value the years I spent at DOJ (Department of Justice) and the friendships I forged there. But the current environment at the Department can only be described as toxic, and I am very thankful I left…What is going on now in DC is a three-ring circus, and I don’t want to have anything to do with it.”

Remember, today we learned for a fact what we've long suspected: that Graves, the former US Attorney from Kansas City, showed up on the DOJ's firing list not long before he 'resigned' and was replaced by Bradley Schlozman as a non-Senate-confirmed appointment under the USA Patriot Act.

The details get complicated and murky; they can be difficult to follow. But this is the big picture: it now seems clear that before those seven firings on December 7th of last year there was a series of 'soft firings' of US Attorneys through much of 2006.

And Schlozman was a prime architect of the Bush administration's 'vote fraud' scam -- which we'll be discussing more next week.