The New York Times has details on McNulty’s resignation, noting that he “had been shaken by the intensity of the storm over the removals and the sometimes sharp personal criticism directed at him from the White House and former Republican allies.”

McNulty blamed himself for failing to resist the dismissal plan when Mr. Sampson brought it to him in October 2006, according to associates. He took one prosecutor off the removal list but acquiesced to the removal of seven others, according to Congressional aides’ accounts of his private testimony to Congress on April 27. [...]

Friends of Mr. McNulty said he had tried to be candid about what he knew of the removals. In his private Congressional testimony, Mr. McNulty said he did not realize until later the extensive White House involvement in Mr. Griffin’s appointment or Mr. Sampson’s nearly year-long effort to compile a list.

White House aides complained privately that Mr. McNulty’s testimony gave Democrats a significant opening to demand more testimony from the Justice Department and presidential aides. Several aides said he should have been combative in defending the dismissals.

Right-wing radio host Laura Schlessinger, “in Salt Lake City on Friday to speak to Army families at Fort Douglas, said she was tired of hearing the complaints of lonely and overwhelmed military wives whose husbands are deployed. ‘He could come back without arms, legs or eyeballs, and you’re (whining)?‘ Schlessinger asked before taking the stage at the base theater to host her daily program on ethics, morals and values. ‘You’re not dodging bullets, so I don’t want to hear any whining — that’s my message to them.’”

“World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz broke bank rules in arranging a hefty compensation package for his girlfriend, a situation that has caused a ‘crisis in the leadership’ at the institution, according to a report released Monday by a special bank panel.” In response, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson “lobbied finance ministers today on the bank chief’s behalf and argued that his mistakes aren’t a firing offense. Paulson blamed the furor on a communications breakdown.”

UPDATE: You can read the full report HERE. Some highlights are HERE.

UPDATE II: Wolfowitz gets Cheney’s endorsement: “Paul Wolfowitz should remain chief of the World Bank, Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday as the poverty-fighting institution moved closer to deciding Wolfowitz’s fate. … Asked whether Wolfowitz should stay in his job, Cheney, in an interview with Fox News in Aqaba, Jordan, replied ‘I do.’“

“The White House was hit by two sudden resignations late Monday when Paul McNulty, a top Justice Department official, and Lanny Davis, the only Democratic member of the president’s civil liberties watchdog board, announced they were stepping down. Both resignations are likely to fuel allegations of White House political meddling in law enforcement and national security issues.”

Davis’s frustration reached a peak last month when White House lawyers engaged in what he described in his letter as “substantial” edits of the board’s annual report to Congress. [...]

When Davis protested the attempted deletions, he said the board was told that the White House lawyers feared that because the material witness law was used by U.S. attorneys, a new probe of that issue would become a part of the larger controversy over the firing of U.s. attorneys. “I found this reason to be inappropriate–and emblematic of the sincere view, with which I strongly disagreed, of at least some administration officials and a majority of the Board that the Board was wholly part of the White House staff and political structure, rather than an independent oversight entity,” Davis wrote in his letter.

“A group of anonymous employees are asking President Bush to fire their boss, the top watchdog at the Commerce Department, and opt for a special counsel to investigate him.”

Commerce Inspector General Johnnie E. Frazier is already being investigated by a congressional committee, the Office of Special Counsel and the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency (PCIE), for charges ranging from retaliation against subordinates to fraud, contract abuse and wasteful spending. Frazier’s job is ferreting out waste, fraud and abuse at the Commerce Department.

“Johnnie E. Frazier should be dismissed…in order to conduct an effective, ‘independent’ investigation,” states the letter to Bush, which was written on official stationery bearing the logo of the Commerce Department Inspector General’s Office.

Scandal-plagued Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA) is the target of a bipartisan campaign to pressure the House Republican Steering Committee to reverse their recent decision to place Calvert on the powerful Appropriations Committee. RedState.org reports today that House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), who backs Calvert, is telling members to ignore the campaign:

According to House staffers, Boehner’s staff is out putting pressure on Steering Committee members to not say how they voted on Calvert.

Two different people tell me the deck is so stacked in Boehner’s favor that even if a majority of the Steering Committee voted against Calvert, he could still get on Appropriations. But, that would look terrible to have a majority vote against Calvert and him still getting on Appropriations.

So, Boehner is pressuring the Steering Committee to totally ignore us.

Several dozen of Alberto Gonzales’ classmates at Harvard Law School, Class of 1982, wrote in a letter today: “As lawyers, and as a matter of principle, we can no longer be silent about this administration’s consistent disdain for the liberties we hold dear. Your failure to stand for the rule of law, particularly when faced with a president who makes the aggrandized claim of being a unitary executive, takes this country down a dangerous path.” The letter stopped short of explicitly calling on Gonzales to step down.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL): “Another resignation won’t make the unanswered questions about the fired U.S. Attorneys disappear. We continue to wait for answers: Who developed the list of the US Attorneys to be fired? How did U.S. Attorneys end up on that list? What happened to the public corruption cases those U.S. Attorneys were investigating at the time of their departures?” Responses from Judiciary Committee chairmen Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT).