Reply #5: The problem is that Fitzgerald is running a basically leak proof

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operation. Consequently, all speculation about the timing of indictments is centered on peripheral information. There are indications that they are pending, the best being the trashing of Wilson and an article in the Washington Times claiming that Plame's cover was lost years earlier in inadvertent intelligence failures.

Now, there is some political gain in slandering Wilson so that may be unrelated to the grand jury.

The news that there were intelligence failures in the years preceding Novak's crime could have only one political benefit, to stage the defense. The reason the release of earlier intelligence failures must be related to worry about pending indictments is that up until now the talking point on Plame was that she was either too low level to matter, or the more widely circulated point was that Novak didn't print anything that wasn't already public knowledge. The right pounds the point that it was all over the DC party circuit that Plame was an operative. The Washington Times report that she was indeed a covert agent contradicts the low-level, party girl, fraud to its core. They wouldn't give that talking point up unless for a good reason.

But there is no way to know when, or if, there will ever be an indictment. There is no doubt there was a crime, but the identity of the perpetrator may never be known. But that the administration seems worried is a promising sign.