Boy, it's getting crowded in here. All of a sudden the big boys are talking about what at times has seemed like our little story here in this particular part of the blogosphere. Now the New York Times (both news and editorial pages), WaPo, and the A.P. are writing about the Todd Graves story.

But, there are some big questions that are unanswered here. I keep reading phrasing like this from NPR that Graves "refused to sign on" to the Missouri voter purge lawsuit. I read this over and over.

But, once again, he did sign on to it. His name is on the document! Why do journalists keep making this rather big mistake? He signed on to the thing! That's exactly what he did. If he didn't consent to it, then someone at DOJ committed a forgery. The lawsuit was filed on November 22, 2005 while Graves was still the USA for the western district of Missouri and his name was on it.

Now, maybe Graves meant what he said in a different sense. After having literally "signed on" to the lawsuit, he later decided he didn't want to be party to it and that was one of the factors in his resignation (although he didn't really have much choice as he was clearly being shown the door).

I guess this signature thing is important to me because I think it directly undercuts his claim that he "wasn't a team player" and that's why he was fired. If he wasn't a team player, why did he sign the thing? He did exactly what a "team player" would do and went along with the Schloz's suit.

I need an answer about this from some of our readers who are lawyers. Do U.S. district attorneys have to sign federal lawsuits filed in their district? Does it mean anything that he signed it? Or is it just an acknowledgement? But doesn't your signature on a lawsuit mean that you support the contents of the filing?

Now, admittedly, it's also awfully hard to believe that Todd Graves is developing a conscience now or had one back in 2005. After all, this is a guy whose wife had suspiciously received a no-bid contract on a fee office from the administration of Governor Matt Blunt worth probably six figures or maybe seven WHILE serving as USA for the district. As I've said before, Graves was apparently being investigated by Bud Cummins because of that rather suspicious lucrative contract. It was likely this fee office investigation that got Cummins fired.

If Graves had any scruples, he and his wife would have turned this offer down as an obvious conflict of interest. But they didn't. The fact that Blunt and his cronies chose to give it to his wife demonstrates that they knew something was wrong with what they were doing -- otherwise Blunt's administration would've just given it to Todd Graves himself instead of his wife.

I mean, don't get me wrong, perhaps she is a great manager and that's why she received it but, um, give me a break, will you? (Here's a link to information about Graves and the fee offices.)

Anyway, I do think the Times editorial page does the best at summing up why all of this is important:

...From the facts available, it looks like a main reason for installing Mr. Schlozman was to help Republicans win a pivotal Missouri Senate race...

...A single Senate campaign may not seem that important. But Missouri’s race was among the nation’s closest, and if Mr. Talent had won, the Republicans would have kept their Senate majority. The American people have a right to know whether Mr. Schlozman was sent on his brief assignment in Missouri to pursue justice, or to affect the outcome of an election.

Indeed.

As always, I'll keep watching this. Once again, I have to give a hat tip to the good folks at Firedup Missouri. Their coverage of this has been invaluable.

In fact, to be honest, I'm a little irritated that the folks at TPM and TPM Muckraker haven't credited them yet. I can tell from reading their stories that they're reading Fired Up Missouri (heck, I've been sending them the links) but they don't ever credit them in their stories. I know, I know, they have to act like their three full-time people are breaking all of this stuff on their own but come on, you could give props to these folks, couldn't you?

For more of my posts on this, go here and you can scroll through them.

UPDATE For those of you who want more on the fee office scandal and the Graves family, go here and here. Here's the money quote:

Graves's wife, as it turns out, "had been given a no-bid contract to run the second most lucrative motor vehicle fee office in Missouri," according to the Missouri Democratic Party, who called for an investigation back in 2005. The contract to the wife of the U.S. Attorney was said to be worth some $2.6 million. Further, Graves's brother-in-law had received a similar no-bid contract from Blunt for $1 million, and two staffers of Graves's brother, Congressman Sam Graves, had also been given two similar contracts.