Update [2007-3-13 12:27:27 by Jonathan Singer]: Per Paul Kiel over at TPMmuckraker, Alberto Gonzales has called a news conference for 2 PM Eastern. Hmm...

Update [2007-3-13 12:15:3 by Jonathan Singer]: Alberto Gonzales cancels his travel plans for today...

More damning news emerged from the prosecutor purge scandal, which now reaches all of the way up to the Oval Office. Over the weekend, we learned that top White House advisor Karl Rove was implicated in the scandal, having served as a conduit of partisan complaints about a United States Attorney from a top New Mexico Republican Party official to the Department of Justice. Now, from both The Washington Post and The New York Times, we learn that the President himself not only did the same but also advocated for the firing of every U.S. Attorney as a result of these partisan complaints. First, David Johnston and Eric Lipton of The Times.

The White House was deeply involved in the decision late last year to dismiss federal prosecutors, including some who had been criticized by Republican lawmakers, administration officials said Monday.

Last October, President Bush spoke with Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to pass along concerns by Republicans that some prosecutors were not aggressively addressing voter fraud, the White House said Monday. Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, was among the politicians who complained directly to the president, according to an administration official.

The Post's Dan Eggen and John Solomon add more.

The White House suggested two years ago that the Justice Department fire all 93 U.S. attorneys, a proposal that eventually resulted in the dismissals of eight prosecutors last year, according to e-mails and internal documents that the administration will provide to Congress today.

The dismissals took place after President Bush told Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales in October that he had received complaints that some prosecutors had not energetically pursued voter-fraud investigations, according to a White House spokeswoman.

Gonzales approved the idea of firing a smaller group of U.S. attorneys shortly after taking office in February 2005. The aide in charge of the dismissals -- his chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson -- resigned yesterday, officials said, after acknowledging that he did not tell key Justice officials about the extent of his communications with the White House, leading them to provide incomplete information to Congress.

As The Post article indicates, the first head has now rolled within the Bush administration over the prosecutor purge scandal, with the chief of staff to the Attorney General submitting his resignation yesterday. But as I suggested yesterday, the President is still going to need to make a higher level firing if he even wants a chance of saving one of his two closest and longest-serving advisors -- Rove and Gonzales, firing one to save the other -- and even that might not be enough to stave off further calls for investigation and culpability.

For the first time in the last six years, there is now direct proof, documentary proof, that could implicate George W. Bush in some of the widespread impropriety within his administration. And though the Bush White House may believe in the at best controversial axiom that if the President does it, it's not illegal, there is more than enough precedent in American history for holding a President accountable for his own actions.

So although Kyle Sampson, who did command some power as chief of staff in the Department of Justice, has now resigned, this is only the beginning of the bloodletting within the Bush administration over this scandal. Before too long, I would be surprised if higher ups (and I do mean higher ups, not higher up) are not also relieved of their positions in the hopes of salvaging the rest of George W. Bush's term in office.