Over at The Hotline blog, associate editor Marc Ambinder notes that Timothy Griffin, the former assistant to Karl Rove for whom the United States Attorney for the state of Arkansas was let go to open up the position, actually does have a résumé that might befit a nominee to serve as a federal prosecutor. But while it may be true that Griffin is not unqualified to receive a presidential nomination (leaving aside the fact that he did not, as many U.S. Attorney in the past have, rise up through the ranks of an office), such a relevation does not negate the fact that these prosecutor purges were indeed politican and highly partisan moves.

In today's Los Angeles Times, reporter Richard A. Serrano details some explosive new allegations that stemmed from his interview with Bud Cummins, the Little Rock prosecutor fired to make room for Griffin.

Still uncertain exactly why he was fired, former U.S. Atty. H.E. "Bud" Cummins III wonders whether it had something to do with the probe he opened into alleged corruption by Republican officials in Missouri amid a Senate race there that was promising to be a nail-biter.

Cummins, a federal prosecutor in Arkansas, was removed from his job along with seven other U.S. attorneys last year.

In January 2006, he had begun looking into allegations that Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt had rewarded GOP supporters with lucrative contracts to run the state's driver's license offices. Cummins handled the case because U.S. attorneys in Missouri had recused themselves over potential conflicts of interest.

But in June, Cummins said, he was told by the Justice Department that he would be fired at year's end to make room for Timothy Griffin -- an operative tied to White House political guru Karl Rove.

Story sound familiar? A U.S. Attorney whose investigation -- or lack thereof -- has the potential to hurt the Republican Party and specific GOP officials? This new revelation only underscores the already fairly evident modus operandi of the Bush administration to partisanize the Department of Justice under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

But that's not the only fact of this particular attempted bait and switch that should leave many questioning the intentions of the Bush administration. Consider this interchange from MSNBC's Countdown last night in which anchor Keith Olbermann asked Wayne Slater, author of Bush's Brain and Austin bureau chief for the Dallas Morning News, about the replacement of Cummins with Griffin. (Video of the interchange is available from MSNBC.com. The quoted section begins about three minutes into the video.)

Keith Olbermann: Is it any coincidence, that one specific story, that Mr. Rove was hell bent on inserting his own assistant Tim Griffin, who incidentally used to dig up dirt on Mr. Bush's opponents, into the U.S. Attorney post in Little Rock, Arkansas just as Senator Clinton would happen to be launching her campaign for the White House?

Wayne Slater: The chances of that being a coincidence are zero, Keith. That's exactly what was happening here. It was important in Karl's mind, clearly, to have an ally on board in Arkansas, a state that's going to be very important in the next presidential race if Hillary Clinton is the nominee... A U.S. Attorney who will be in the position to look at problems, potentially, with what may have happened with the Clinton's when they were living in Arkansas. So this is no mistake. This is no accident. This is by political design.

While these are both more circumstantial evidence than anything else, as I've noted before the sheer amount of circumstantial evidence available today at least reaches the level of probable cause necessary to begin an investigation -- an investigation that should be undertaken by a special prosecutor, not one under the thumb of Gonzales or the White House -- and certainly reaches the point at which a fairly strong case can be made in the court of public opinion that there have been serious misuses and abuses of the powers of the executive branch on the part of George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales, Harriet Miers and others.