U.S. Attorney Debra Yang has shocked City Hall and given her corruption probe a newly threatening edge by formally asking that every email to and from Mayor Jim Hahn and his staff since he took office in 2001 be preserved pending possible subpoena. Friday's Times and Daily News say that City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo sent letters to Hahn and each member of the City Council instructing them to comply. The mayor's office vowed to cooperate, but the scope of the request can't be good news for Hahn, who faces a reelection campaign while questions pile up about the ethics of his administration. Think of it: every email between Hahn or aides and his political appointees on the commissions -- and outside adviser Fleishman-Hillard -- concerning political strategy, rivals, fundraising, personnel and the fight to defeat secession in 2002 might soon be in the hands of federal prosecutors.

Reaction in the Times:

"It's terribly serious," said Councilman Jack Weiss, who once served in the U.S. attorney's anti-corruption unit and is a frequent Hahn critic. "It means federal authorities are going through the operations of the mayor's office with a fine-tooth comb."...

"It really signals that the prosecutors have an ongoing interest in the mayor's office," said George B. Newhouse Jr., former deputy chief of the public corruption unit in the Los Angeles office of the U.S. attorney...

In the Daily News:

"Even though it's just a request to preserve documents, I think it means the mayor's office is under a microscope," Weiss said. "The U.S. Attorney's Office does not conduct fishing expeditions.

"This tells me that professional criminal investigators believe the e-mails might contain some evidence of a crime. I think they are doing this while they refine their requests for specific information."

I have to believe that with this news, at least one more Hahn rival has nudged closer to deciding that now is the time to strike and run against the incumbent in next year's election.