The scandal over the fired U.S. attorneys can be hard to follow. After all, the Justice Department just released 3,000 pages of e-mails between White House staffers, DOJ officials, prosecutors, and various politicos.

As a public service, Radar dives into the pile of paper and comes back with the shiniest nuggets of government gold. In this installment: old girlfriends and a whiff of Scorsese ...

Page 8: One of the most controversial judicial appointments was that of J. Timothy Griffin, whose strongest qualifications for being named the U.S. attorney for Arkansas were that he worked as Karl Rove's assistant in 2005 and did opposition research for the Republicans during the 2000 campaign. In an e-mail to Monica Goodling, the Justice Department's liaison to the White House, Griffin passes along a few references that don't pop up on his resumé. "I am good friends with both chiefs of staff to [Arkansas Senators] Pryor and Lincoln. Pryor's chief of staff is a good friend and Lincoln's was my high school girlfriend," Griffin writes. "Should I say anything to them? I would hate for my senators to be told without my peeps knowing? [sic]" The former girlfriend reference—always a solid way into a job as U.S. attorney!

Page 45: Bud Cummins, the U.S. attorney fired to make room for the aforementioned high school swordsman, is a Rove crony who felt threatened enough by officials at the Justice Department that he resorted to fightin' words inspired by Robert De Niro's Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver.. "I was tempted to challenge him and say something movie-like such as 'are you threatening ME???,' but instead I kind of shrugged it off," Cummins writes in an e-mail describing Justice Department pressure on him to keep his mouth shut about his dismissal. "They feel like [if] any of us intend to continue to offer quotes to the press, or organize behind the scenes congressional pressure, then they would feel forced to somehow pull their gloves off."

And, you know, go all Raging Bull.