Thanks to documents made available by the Justice Department and the tireless folks at  TPM we are now glimpsing the behind the scenes machinations of the DOJ (and White House) in the earliest days of the US Attorney purge fallout.  

Those words "all we need is one Senator" were penned by the now former Chief of Staff to the Attorney General, Kyle Sampson.  Apparently his call to the cavalry was answered, by the intrepid Senator from Arizona, Jon Kyl.

An attempt was made February 16, 2007 to pass a bill in the Senate reversing the changes that were made to the U.S. Attorney appointment process in the Patriot Reauthorization Act in March 2006.  Senator Kyl was there saying no, repeating the objection of Deputy Attorney Paul McNulty:

Democrats "are trying to create a scandal where none exists," Kyl said in an interview yesterday. "There's a lot of politics to this. ... Let's sit down and work out a [deal] that allows three or four amendments."

...

Kyl's chief concern is the bill's awarding of U.S. attorney appointment power to the courts if a permanent nominee is not named within 120 days, which the Arizonan believes may overstep the separation of powers. To push the administration to act quickly on openings, Kyl suggested the Senate should impose a deadline on itself.

"If it's important to make sure the president's got to send a nominee forward, one might also agree we should set a limit for the Senate to act on that nominee," Kyl said.
The Hill

As reported by TPMMuckraker and Roll Call, the DOJ withdrew its opposition to Senator Feinstein's attempt to reverse the change to the PATRIOT Act Reauthorization that allowed the appointment of indefinite interim US Attorneys.  Fortunately for the DOJ, Senator Kyl planned to continue his "objection."

To recap: Attorney General Gonzales's chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, sent an email on December 19th, 2006 outlining the strategy by which the Bush administration can look cooperative, but still block actual reinstitution of the senate confirmation process of U.S. Attorneys as it was pre-Patriot Act reauthorization (March 2006) -- One senator "objects" and basically stalls the process. The Dec. 19th email explains Senator Kyl's objection on February 15th, 2007. The Bush Administration gets to look like it is being cooperative, but Kyl still stalls the process.

Update [2007-3-13 23:14:6 by standingup]: Senator Kyl can't deny there was an opportunity for him to have spoken with the members of the DOJ. He has admitted speaking with them as noted in the Arizona Republic:

Even so, Charlton said that he told Arizona GOP Sen. Jon Kyl, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, of the call and that Kyl agreed to speak to officials at the department on his behalf. "Senator Kyl informed me that after his conversation with the Department of Justice that the department agreed they would reconsider their asking me to resign," Charlton said. ... Kyl, in a statement released by his office on Friday, said he had "been assured that both Attorney General (Alberto) Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty are grateful for Paul Charlton's five years of service, as am I." ... On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee in a bipartisan vote passed a measure opposed by Kyl to repeal that provision.