This can't be good for Republican Chris Christie:

New Jersey GOP gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie's campaign said there was nothing improper about a conversation he had more than four years ago with top White House adviser Karl Rove about a possible challenge to Gov. Jon Corzine.

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Guidelines spelled out in the Hatch Act prohibit federal employees organizing political meetings or assembling campaign staff. The prohibitions also apply to preliminary political activities that set a candidacy in motion, said Erica Hamrick, deputy chief of the Hatch Act Unit in the Office of Special Counsel in Washington.

"Any kind of preliminary activity that leads to formally becoming a candidate can be considered candidacy in terms of the Hatch Act and would be in violation," said Hamrick.

Polling, both nonpartisan and from the Democrats, already shows the gubernatorial race in New Jersey tightening, so the specter of a potential Hatch Act violation cannot be a positive development for the campaign of Christie. While the special counsel's office no longer has jurisdiction over Christie, as he is out of the office of United States Attorney, this news could nevertheless be particularly damaging for Christie as it could serve to undercut the image his campaign has attempted to put forward -- one of a crime-fighter removed from partisan politics.

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This isn't necessarily a game-changer, but with New Jersey's Democratic Governor Jon Corzine already narrowing his deficit against Republican Chris Christie, this news isn't likely to make the GOP too happy.

Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove says he spoke with then-U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie about his interest in running for Governor, according to testimony Rove gave to the House Judiciary Committee last month.

"I talked to him twice in the last couple of years, perhaps one time while I was at the White House and once or twice since I left the White House, but -- not regarding his duties as U.S. Attorney, but regarding his interest in running for Governor, and he asked me questions about who -- who were good people that knew about running for Governor that he could talk to," Rove told the panel.

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Rove said he "vaguely" recalls Christie looking into allegations against U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken) before the 2006 election, but testified that he had no personal communications with Christie or anyone at the Department of Justice or the White House Counsel's office about the Menendez investigation.

Asked if the timing of the investigation was favorable to Republicans in the election, Rove said "I suspect so."

Christie is running as a tough-on-corruption prosecutor, the type of Republican voters in the traditionally Democratic New Jersey could support. So to the extent that this document release undercuts that image -- as it appears to, with Rove both indicating that Christie viewed the post as a stepping stone and that he also used the post to pursue political investigations -- it creates an opening Corzine to portray Christie as just another Republican.

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I'm shocked, shocked, to find out that Karl Rove played a larger role in the prosecutor purge scandal than was previously let on.

Political adviser Karl Rove and other high-ranking figures in the Bush White House played a greater role than previously understood in the firing of federal prosecutors almost three years ago, according to e-mails obtained by The Washington Post, in a scandal that led to mass Justice Department resignations and an ongoing criminal probe.

The e-mails and new interviews with key participants reflect contacts among Rove, aides in the Bush political affairs office and White House lawyers about the dismissal of three of the nine U.S. attorneys fired in 2006: New Mexico's David C. Iglesias, the focus of ire from GOP lawmakers; Missouri's Todd Graves, who had clashed with one of Rove's former clients; and Arkansas's Bud Cummins, who was pushed out to make way for a Rove protégé.

Per The Washington Post's Carrie Johnson, who penned the piece above, "Assistant U.S. Attorney Nora R. Dannehy continues to investigate whether the firings of the prosecutors and the political firestorm that followed could form the basis of possible criminal charges." So this story, even a few years removed from the actual events, isn't necessarily going away any time soon.

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Josh Marshall writes under the headline "Ain't Like the Old Days":

A few days back President Bush 'requested' that the Justice Department intervene in the vote challenge dispute in Ohio. This is after Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner won the dispute in the courts. Now comes word that the DOJ will likely to pass on the president's suggestion.

Chalk this up as a major win for the Obama legal team. Earlier this month campaign counsel Bob Bauer fired off two separate letters to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who, although at least as conservative as Alberto Gonzales, seems to have the sense of history not to want to be remembered as another in a line of stooges for George W. Bush who abused the criminal justice system to suit the needs of the Republican Party. Here's a portion of one of the letters from Bauer (who, for the purposes of disclosure, I worked for this summer):

In the light of an emerging pattern of apparent unlawful coordination between the McCain campaign and the Department of Justice and state law enforcement agencies controlled by Republican officials, the most recent and outrageous example of which is noted below, other steps beyond those urged in the October 17 letter are urgently needed. While an investigation by Special Prosecutor Dannehy is necessary, it is not sufficient. Her jurisdiction extends only to violations of federal criminal law. She has no power either to investigate and remedy past violations of Department policies, or to proect against misuse of the Department for partisan political "attack" purposes between now and Election Day.

Accordingly, I am writing now to ask (a) that the Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility investigate what appear to be substantial violations of Department of Justice policy in connection with the so-called "election fraud" investigations and (b) that you personally take steps to ensure that all relevant Department of Justice policies are followed and that the Department is not misused for partisan purposes.

These actions, and nothing less, are required to restore public confidence that the Department of Justice will honor its traditions and avoid further embroilment in this unethical and illegal misuse of law enforcement authority to serve partisan political ends.

Citing hard law and appealing to this apparent historical understanding, the Obama camp was able to shine a light on the process. In doing so, they boxed Mukasey in such a way that it would have been extremely difficult for him to use the levers of power in the Justice Department to harangue potentially Democratic voters and otherwise make more arduous Obama's path to the White House. It was no coincidence, then, that we haven't heard of the DOJ playing the types of tricks for which it has become so famous during the Bush era -- raising the specter of voter fraud, playing politics with the U.S. Attorneys. So kudos to the Obama campaign and legal team for being on top of the ball and having a clear strategy to push back on any attempts to unfairly game the system.

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Over the weekend I noted that the Obama campaign was not allowing itself to get pushed around when it came to ensuring that voters' voices are heard on election day -- not even by the Department of Justice. To be specific, on Friday campaign counsel Bob Bauer fired off a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Special Prosecutor Nora Dannehy requesting an investigation into the apparent "misconduct" within the DOJ on behalf of John McCain, the likes of which were previously seen during the prosecutor purge scandal that brought down Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Today Bauer has penned another even stronger letter to Mukasey that reads in part as follows:

In the light of an emerging pattern of apparent unlawful coordination between the McCain campaign and the Department of Justice and state law enforcement agencies controlled by Republican officials, the most recent and outrageous example of which is noted below, other steps beyond those urged in the October 17 letter are urgently needed. While an investigation by Special Prosecutor Dannehy is necessary, it is not sufficient. Her jurisdiction extends only to violations of federal criminal law. She has no power either to investigate and remedy past violations of Department policies, or to proect against misuse of the Department for partisan political "attack" purposes between now and Election Day.

Accordingly, I am writing now to ask (a) that the Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility investigate what appear to be substantial violations of Department of Justice policy in connection with the so-called "election fraud" investigations and (b) that you personally take steps to ensure that all relevant Department of Justice policies are followed and that the Department is not misused for partisan purposes.

These actions, and nothing less, are required to restore public confidence that the Department of Justice will honor its traditions and avoid further embroilment in this unethical and illegal misuse of law enforcement authority to serve partisan political ends.

You can read the whole letter here in .pdf format. To get a little more background on the broader effort, check out Bauer (who, for disclosure purposes, I worked for last summer) on Countdown Friday night:

Along with the news that the Obama campaign has assembled what has been dubbed "the largest law firm in the country, albeit for one day" to ensure that all the votes are counted -- in effect guarding against the type of manipulation of the legal process seen during the Florida recount in 2000 -- we can see that the campaign is indeed taking affirmative steps to protect the integrity of this year's election.

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