The second email can also be read as Sampson fishing to see if there have ever been any performance issues raised with Lam -- i.e., hoping to find acceptable justifications for taking action against her. If she has a _known_ immigration enforcement problem, how would it be known by Sampson and Gonzales without it having been raised from lower levels (ODAG is the office that manages the US attorneys). Likewise the bit about sending more immigration prosecutors to S.D. with the interesting choice of word "premise" sounds odd.

Smoking gun? Absolutely not. Interesting enough to pursue further? I'd say so. And that's what congressional hearings are about -- investigating.

And it's a hell of a thicker reed than your contention that Reno firing all USAs was to let Rosty off the hook.

Clearly replacing here in Nov wasn't going to save Duke, but firing her before the end of term when the Duke thing had already become public would have been politically impossible. And even firing her after the fact would be attractive in case she still had ambitions and to send a signal to other USAs about how to keep their jobs.