Mike Nifong, Adam Henry UPDATED

Well, it's official: the North Carolina Attorney General has dismissed all of the charges against the three Duke Lacrosse players, not to anyone's great surprise.

"The result of our review and investigation shows clearly that there is insufficient evidence to proceed on any of the charges," Cooper said. "Today we are filing notices of dismissal for all charges."

He added: "We believe these cases were a result of a tragic rush to accuse and failure to verify serious allegations. Based on these significant inconsistencies of evidence and the various accounts given by the accusing witness, we believe these three individuals are innocent of these charges."

Not only innocent of the charges, but he also said that they don't think an assault even occurred! An astounding revelation, indeed.

Clearly, Nifong is as corrupt and dishonest as they come. There can be no doubt that he filed these charges just to win re-election last year. He made false allegations, failed to follow any kind of basic investigative principles, ignored evidence and hid exculpatory evidence. And for that, he should lose his job and his licenses to practice law. And he should be criminally charged with obstruction of justice, at the very least.

The sad thing is that nobody in his office had the guts to report the truth. Not the other D.A.'s in the office, not the investigators or the detectives involved in the case, not the staff of the investigating police department. And that is sad, indeed. The Grand Jury needs to investigate the D.A.'s office and the local police and get to the bottom of this pathetic performance.

And everyone who was involved and said nothing must go.

From what the AG said today, anyone involved in this case should have known that it had no merit. The victim made conflicting statements and has a troubled history. There were no witnesses and even the accusers friend said an attack was unlikely. No DNA evidence. Poor investigations and shoddy interviews. He hid the victim away so she couldn't be interviewed. Even the TV pundits could see the holes in this thing and spent countless hours shooting holes in Nifong's case.

Someone should have gone to the GJ and stopped this long ago.

This story is far from over.

Also posting:

• Michelle Malkin: "No attack occurred"
• Mary Katharine Ham.
• Hot Air » Breaking: NC Attorney General dismisses charges in Duke lax case; Update: Shepard Smith explodes ove...
• The Smoking Gun: Duke Charges Dropped - April 11, 2007

***UPDATED***: And here's the obligatory apology:

"To the extent that I made judgments that ultimately proved to be incorrect, I apologize to the three students that were wrongly accused," Nifong said in a statement.

Is that not the most pathetic, understated apology ever?

What a piece of work.

And the nuts on The View just can't let it go. Scary.