We knew it was only a matter of time:

Rebekah Brooks, the loyal lieutenant of Rupert Murdoch, resigned Friday as chief executive of his embattled British newspapers, becoming the biggest casualty so far in the phone hacking scandal at a Sunday tabloid.

Murdoch had vigorously defended Brooks in the face of demands from politicians that she step down, and had previously refused to accept her resignation.

Brooks was editor of News of the World between 2000 and 2003, the time of the most explosive allegations to hit Murdoch’s News Corp. media empire, and she has been in charge of News International’s four British newspapers since 2007.

Of course this does not absolve her of any wrongdoing, but the fact that the Murdoch’s accepted her resignation doesn’t bode well for the media empire, especially with the announcement yesterday from the FBI that they have launched an investigation into the possible hacking of 9/11 victims here in the U.S.