A late Friday afternoon resignation at the U.S. Department of Justice. And, guess what?  It's yet another top DOJ staffer who was caught up in the firing of the U.S. Attorneys scandal -- Mike Elston:

A senior Justice Department official who helped carry out the firings of eight U.S. attorneys said Friday he is resigning.

Mike Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, is the fifth Justice official to leave after being linked to the dismissals of the prosecutors.

Busy day for Monica Goodling who testified with immunity yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee.

She admitted her own wrong doing when it came to hiring new lawyers at the Department of Justice:

A former top Justice Department aide testified on Wednesday that she had “crossed the line” in considering the political beliefs of applicants for nonpartisan legal jobs and suggested that earlier testimony by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and another top official about the dismissals of federal prosecutors may have been flawed.

She testified that she really had no significant role in getting the U.S. Attorneys fired:

But she said that even though she was the Justice Department’s liaison to the White House, she did not play a significant role in the dismissals and never discussed them with Karl Rove, the president’s chief political adviser or Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel.

“I did not hold the keys to the kingdom as some have suggested,” Ms. Goodling said to the House Judiciary Committee.

She intimated that the Attorney General of the United States may have misled Congress (while apparently trying to get their stories straight):

Ms. Goodling appeared to contradict Mr. Gonzales’s testimony to the committee this month in which he said he had not spoken to his senior aides since the firings “to protect the integrity of this investigation.”

During a meeting in March before she resigned, Ms. Goodling said, Mr. Gonzales asked her questions that left her uncomfortable. She thought he might be trying to compare recollections, so their stories would be consistent if they were questioned about their actions, she said. “I just thought maybe we shouldn’t have that conversation,” she said.

And, like her former boss Alberto Gonzales, she threw for Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty under the bus:

Ms. Goodling also accused Paul J. McNulty, the outgoing deputy attorney general, of misleading Congress when he testified on Feb. 6 to a Senate panel. Specifically, she said Mr. McNulty knew more details about the White House involvement in the firings than he acknowledged in his testimony.

“I believe he was not fully candid,” she said.

Dan Froomkin analyzes up the treatment Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty received today from his boss, Alberto Gonzales -- It involves a knife in McNulty's back:

The orders from the White House to any number of embattled senior administration officials appear to be the same: Hunker down, admit nothing, offer no appearance of panic and whatever you do, don't resign.

The penalty for violating those orders came more clearly into focus this morning. Just hours after Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty announced his resignation, his boss publicly stabbed him in the back.

McNulty, widely considered to have played only a supporting role in the controversial firings of U.S. attorneys last year, did his bosses the kindness yesterday of citing "financial pressures" as his reason for abruptly ending his long career in public service in the midst of a scandal.

But Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wasted no time in planting the knife. Although Gonzales has previously been vague to the point of cluelessness about the genesis of the firings, suddenly this morning the ambiguity was gone.

"The deputy attorney general has unique position at the Department of Justice. Most of the operational authority and decisions are made by the deputy attorney general. He is the chief operating officer," Gonzales said in a question-and-answer session at the National Press Club.

Today, Alberto Gonzales laid the responsibility for firing the nine U.S. Attorneys squarely on the shoulders of the departing Deputy Attorney General, Paul McNulty.   Mr. McNulty declined to comment.  Seems we may have some in-fighting underway at the Department of Justice: 

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday he relied on his resigning deputy more than any other aide to decide which U.S. attorneys should be fired last year. 

His comments came a less than a day after Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty announced he would resign at the end of the summer _ a decision that people familiar with the plans said was hastened by the controversy over the purge of eight prosecutors.

"You have to remember, at the end of the day, the recommendations reflected the views of the deputy attorney general. He signed off on the names," Gonzales told reporters at a National Press Club forum in Washington. "And he would know better than anyone else, anyone in this room, anyone _ again, the deputy attorney general would know best about the qualifications and the experiences of the United States attorneys community, and he signed off on the names."

And, although McNulty declined to comment, chances are that we'll be hearing more from him.

Remember what David Iglesias said last week, "I think all roads lead to Rove." 

CNN is reporting that Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty will be resigning.  McNulty has been a central figure in the scandal surrounding the firing of the U.S. Attorneys.