The Washington Examiner got the scoop:

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has terminated his office's relationship with King & Spalding, the Atlanta law firm that abrubtly dropped the U.S. House of Representatives as a client for purposes of defending the Defense of Marriage Act.

"King & Spalding's willingness to drop a client, the U.S. House of Representatives, in connection with the lawsuit challenging the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was such an obsequious act of weakness that I feel compelled to end your legal association with Virginia so that there is no chance that one of my legal clients will be put in the embarrassing and difficult situation like the client you walked away from, the House of Representatives," Cuccinelli said in a letter to Joseph Lynch in the firm's Washington, D.C. office.

... The firm had been retained by the Virginia AG's office Sept. 15, 2009. Cuccinelli said the firm was being terminated "effective immediately."

Cuccinelli said he acted because "Virginia does not shy away from hiring outside counsel because they may have ongoing professional relationships with people or entities, or on behalf of causes that I, or my office, or Virginia as a whole may not support. But it is crucial for us to be able to trust and rely on the fact that our outside counsel will not desert Virginia due to pressure by an outside group or groups."

Updates:

• Politico has weighed-in
• The American Bar Association online journal takes note
• David Weigel at Slate: "The precedent says what Cuccinelli implies"
• The Huffington Post chimes-in