The Arkansas Times (blog) reports:

The U.S. Justice Department has notified Arkansas’s congressional delegation that Interim Eastern District U.S. Attorney Tim Griffin is resigning effective Friday, June 1. Jane Duke will become acting U.S. attorney. (This is the assistant in the office who the Justice Department once had said had to be passed over as an interim appointee because of her pregnancy. Since it’s illegal to discriminate on account of pregnancy, Justice had to back off this statement.)

Still no word from the White House on selection of a nominee to put through the Senate confirmation process from a slate sent up by Rep. John Boozman.

This is long overdue and a positive development,” said Michael Teague, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor. “Credibility is being restored to the leadership postion at the U.S. attorney’s office. We have confidence Jane Duke will do a good job.”

Griffin was placed in the job as part of an effort to install picks of Karl Rove in U.S. attorney jobs throughout the U.S. Griffin once worked for Rove. The politics of the move has become more apparent in a succession of congressional hearings. Pryor’s criticism of the ouster of Bud Cummins to give Griffin the job and the use of a permanent interim appointment under the Patriot Act helped trigger what has grown into a national scandal. A law to end the president’s ability to make permanent interim picks without Senate confirmation now awaits the president’s signature.

Long overdue indeed. As far as I can tell, Griffin did not deserve this job: what made him “qualified” were politics. Karl Rove’s politics. He is a “loyal Bushie.”

It seems to me that the law has to be changed: to make sure that something like this does not happen again.