The exodus of top Justice Department officials continues with Richard Hertling--embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's point man in dealing with Congress--slated to resign next week to take a top policy job with the soon-to-be-announced presidential campaign of Fred Thompson, a senior Justice official confirmed to NEWSWEEK.

Hertling, who has been serving as acting attorney general for legislative affairs, is the latest in a parade of departures in recent months that is threatening to leave the Justice Department virtually denuded of senior political appointees. Since the controversy over the firing of U.S. attorneys erupted earlier this year, more than half a dozen top officials have either resigned or announced their intention to do so, including Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, his chief of staff, Michael Elston, Acting Associate Attorney General William Mercer, Gonzales's chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, and White House liaison Monica Goodling.

"The Titanic is sinking," Bruce Fein, a former top Justice Department official under the Reagan administration and a sharp Gonzales critic, said today about Hertling's resignation. "The fact is the department has become dysfunctional. Gonzales is going to be left with no subordinates."

It's that time of year again, folks. June 30 is the second-quarter fund-raising deadline for 2008 presidential hopefuls, and the big question heading into Saturday is how much money the campaigns have raised and spent during the last three months. Technically, the candidates don't have to tell us until July 15, when their disclosure reports are due at the Federal Election Commission. But if their handling of the first-quarter numbers is any indication, the candidates will probably brag about how much they've raised well before the deadline, possibly as early as next week.

But "brag" might be a strong word. Already many candidates are playing the expectations game--as in, uh oh, maybe we didn't do as well as we hoped. Some of this is smoke and mirrors. Hillary Clinton types, for example, are spreading word that she might be beaten by Barack Obama again when it comes to primary fund-raising, while Obama aides, off the record of course, are putting the onus on Hillary, talking a sad story about how tough it is to compete against the Clinton money juggernaut. The truth is, we just won't know until we see the numbers.

Fred Thompson has a gift for knowing just what to say to anyone, in any situation. In 1998, when Thompson was a Republican senator and a single man about town, New York socialite Georgette Mosbacher invited him to accompany her on an overseas trip. Thompson couldn't go, and summoned the full measure of his Tennessee charm in letting her down. "I am sitting here with a long face and broken heart as I contemplate sunsets on the Mediterranean, which I will not see," he wrote to Mosbacher on his official Senate stationery. "We must remember the unspoken vow that all United States senators take upon entering the Senate: I shall have no money, and I shall have no fun. I, of course regarding myself as an unconquerable soul, am still determined to break the second part of that vow."

Fred Thompson once joked with reporters that he's an "open book," and he wasn't kidding. Unlike many prominent former senators--Al Gore, John Edwards, Bill Frist--Thompson put his eight years of Senate records up for public review two years ago. The collection, on file at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, includes more than 400 boxes of personal letters, campaign memos, photographs and internal-strategy files on everything from his investigation into Bill Clinton's 1996 fund-raising to dealings with reporters. As NEWSWEEK reported this week, there are plenty of documents about politics and policy, some that GOP voters might not like.

And then there's the interesting stuff.

Your Gaggler could probably spend all day long talking about last night's series finale of "The Sopranos." And truth be told, she pretty much has. (Sorry, boss.) We won't even begin to pick through what it all meant: Did Tony die? Did Tony live? And what was up with that cat? (Adriana lives, people!) Suffice to say, one of the best moments of the night had to have been A.J.'s reaction upon seeing his $30,000 SUV explode in flames because he parked it on leaves during an impromptu hook-up with a high school sweetie. According to A.J., it was just as well. "We need to break our dependence on foreign oil," he declared. President Bush couldn't have said it better. (And Bush even made a cameo--dancing. As did Karl Rove. Talk about a lasting legacy.) At least we're not the only ones consumed. Even the folks cruising the Free Republic forums have found a way to bring the debate full circle. "There is no way that Tony Soprano can be killed," one Free Republic reader wrote. "He is like immigration reform, too much at stake for too many people."

Update: Hillary gets in on the action:

By Ruth Olson

It would be stating the obvious to say that Mormon presidential candidate Mitt Romney has a lot of support at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. But the former Massachusetts governor isn't the only pol drawing support on the campus of 27,000 full-time undergraduate students, 98 percent of them members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

David Garber, a BYU student from Virginia, recently started a club to promote the candidacy of Republican Ron Paul. The group isn't an official campus club yet, so his activities have been limited. Garber admits it has been somewhat difficult getting started; so far he has half a dozen members in his group. "We're pretty optimistic," says Garber, who believes Paul's policies are a better fit with mainstream Utah values than Romney's.

Lauren Clough, who's heading up a group in support of Democratic candidate Barack Obama, says the school administration has been supportive, but that doesn't always hold true of the students. "It is hard, and it can be frustrating, because people can be mean about it," she says. But then again, she said, she's always liked a challenge.

By Noelle Chun

There weren't any advertisements. And yet, one warm Saturday morning in May, in the middle of the Pacific, an unpublicized organizational meeting drew some 150 people to a sticky middle-school classroom. But who needs publicity when the project is about Hawaii's favorite son, Barack Obama, who was born in the Islands and graduated from high school in Honolulu.

But the Obama camp might not want to rest on its laurels. Among Hawaii's congressional delegation, nominee support is fractured. The state's senior senator, Daniel Inouye, announced two weeks ago he would support Hillary Clinton. Rep. Neil Abercrombie is supporting Obama, but Sen. Daniel Akaka remains quiet on the matter. "The Democrats in Hawaii are less and less cohesive," says Jim Shon, a political analyst and former state legislator.

Still many are pumped up about Obama's Hawaiian roots. "What's exciting is this idea of aloha being brought to the world," says supporter Lynne Johnson of Honolulu. "After growing up in Hawaii and Indonesia, Barack represents that tolerance and inclusiveness and mutual understanding."

Let's face it: Being a second-tier presidential candidate blows. It's hard to raise money. You have to travel on the cheap, unlike some of the other presidential hopefuls who navigate the primary states on charter planes and luxury buses. It's not even guaranteed that you'll get much face time during a presidential debate. Some candidates think the way to momentum is to get the media's attention, but even that's not easy, in spite of the fact reporters happen to love them a gabby presidential hopeful.

Case in point: Former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore, who has tried to rev up his campaign by offering up tough-talking one-liners about how he's the only real conservative in the race. The former Republican National Committee chairman generated a little buzz a few weeks ago by deriding the top three GOP frontrunners as "Rudy McRomney" because he claims they don't share the "core conservative principles" of his party. During the first debate, Gilmore used his brief moment in the spotlight--he's averaged about five minutes of talking time at the debates, about half what the frontrunners get--to mention the address of his campaign Web site, in hopes of generating some buzz. "Gilmore for President dot com," the governor said during the South Carolina debate three weeks ago.

Is it working? Probably not, considering his aides sent out not one, but two middle of the night e-mails to reporters here in New Hampshire offering up the former governor for interviews.