Chris Christie is having a bad week. Yesterday, the New York Times reported that Christie failed to report the $46,000 loan he gave to one of his top aides while he was a U.S. attorney, as required under federal and state ethics rules, and has not listed the loan in any of his personal financial disclosures since it was made on October 22, 2007.

Last Tuesday, the New Jersey Republican gubernatorial challenger was forced to answer questions about his past conversations with former Bush aide Karl Rove about a potential bid for Governor, which took place as he was serving as U.S. attorney, a non-political position.

Just weeks earlier, Americans learned that Rove had a larger role in the Bush administration’s politically motivated firings of U.S. attorneys than was previously known, which made his conversations with Christie all the more relevant and directed new scrutiny towards Christie’s leaking word of a conveniently timed investigation of Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) just two months before he was up for election in 2006.

In his July 7 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Rove said this about his conversations with Christie:

“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.”

But might Christie discussed running for Governor with Rove even earlier? From a 2003 NYT profile of Christie:

Unlike some United States attorneys who prefer to cultivate an apolitical image, Mr. Christie remains a die-hard Bush supporter, with photographs of the president prominently placed in his office. One shot from the Texas governor’s mansion shows Mr. Christie with Mr. Bush in front of a painting of the last stand at the Alamo. Mr. Christie noted that the photo was taken by Mr. Bush’s omnipresent political adviser, Karl Rove.

The whole Christie-Bush-Rove photo session sounds so adorable, but the question of whether or not they discussed a bid for Governor or his duties as U.S. attorney is more important, because, as the the New Jersey Star Ledger writes, “Christie had been attracting buzz as a promising GOP candidate since 2003.”