We've long been suspicious of the circumstances surrounding the firing of U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, the prosecutor who led the still-growing Duke Cunningham investigation.

Well, here's more grist for the mill. An email released last week shows that purgemeister Kyle Sampson was hours away from asking the president to fire Lam not because she wouldn't resign, but because she wanted more time on the job to handle her very important prosecutions.