We reported before that L.A. Times Schwarzenegger reporter Peter Nicholas was leaving Sacramento for the Washington bureau. Now here's the memo from bureau chief Doyle McManus and national editor Scott Kraft. After the jump:

To: The Staff
From: Scott Kraft, National Editor
Doyle McManus, Washington Bureau Chief

We're exceedingly pleased to announce that Peter Nicholas, the intrepid Sacramento bureau reporter who has broken story after story on Gov. Schwarzenegger and his administration, will be joining our Washington bureau in mid-June. He will be operating in the politics/domestic policy/White House arena; the specific assignment is still being formulated.

Peter joined the paper in 2003 as a City Hall reporter and moved to the Sacramento bureau a few months later. In Sacramento, he has not only written a string of scoops but also has done smart analysis on the governor. It was Peter who wrote about Schwarzenegger's $8 million contract with a tabloid publisher, reached two days before he was sworn into office.

Peter came to The Times from the Philadelphia Inquirer's Washington bureau. Previously, he worked at the (New Orleans) Times-Picayune and the (Framington, Mass.) Middlesex News.

Among his many awards are a Selden Ring for investigative journalism and a Gerald Loeb award, both in 1995.

Peter is a graduate of Williams College in Massachusetts.