There is a lot of speculation about the fact Fitzgerald is beginning to look into events prior to the Wilson article. One of the discoveries is information about a Miller-Libby conversation on June 23, well before the July 6th Wilson hit piece.

Libby also did not disclose the June 23 conversation when he was twice interviewed by FBI agents working on the Plame leak investigation, the sources said.
…
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald apparently learned about the June 23 conversation for the first time just days ago, after attorneys for Miller and The New York Times informed prosecutors that Miller had discovered a set of notes on the conversation.

I like the use of the word ‘apparently’. If my recollections are correct, the prosecutor did not originally request information prior to the Wilson article so it is not a surprise he did not hear of events prior to his information request period.

Tom Maguire has this excellent post on a new WSJ article that still has those expecting Libby and Rove indictments salivating:

Or put another way, is the Wall Street Journal kidding? Based on that excerpt, they are telling us today what the WaPo told us quite a while ago, and which was supported by the “One x Two x Six” reporting from the NY Times the following February.

And by the time of the release of the SSCI Report on pre-war intelligence in July 2004, it was obvious that the Wilson story did not start on July 6, 2004. Or, as another example, we have had plenty of reporting that Fitzgerald is interested in an INR memo from June 10, including important news from the WSJ.

Make sure to follow the link to Tom’s site in order to get the embedded links. What I am interested in pointing out is how slow some in the media are in catching up to all the spade work done by the bloggers – especially Maguire. It is not news that battle between Wilson and the administration was engaged well before his Op-Ed piece. He had been leaking like a sieve up until that point.

And this is where it gets interesting. If there are going to be indictments against Plame and Plame’s CIA cohorts it will be due to leaking information supporting Wilson’s claims to the press. And the initial events of this taking place are obviously during this time period before his NY Times piece. In fact, Miller could have been simply asking for confirmation of Wilson’s claims as a fact checker for the NY Times prior to the running of the editorial.

I am sure the NY Time lawyers check editorial from outside people like Wilson that include wild charges, like his piece did, before allowing it to go into print. And part of that process is fact checking. And I would wager that includes tapping reporters with strong sources.

Now if Fitzgerald is just learning of this, he needs to extend his grand jury to tighten it all up. But if he is actually finalizing time lines of contemporaneous events to nail down when people talked to CIA contacts, then he is very close to the end. He is just cleaning up and solidifying details.

Buttressing my belief the prosecutor is after rogue CIA agents in his indictment is this post at Mac’s Mind discussing where some of these rogue CIA agents ended up – ultra liberal, anti-war, anti-American organizations.

Also is this AP story from 2003 linked to by Tom in the above referenced post:

A senior CIA official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the intelligence agency informed the White House on March 9, 2002 – 10 months before Bush’s nationally televised speech – that an agency source who had traveled to Niger couldn’t confirm European intelligence reports that Iraq was attempting to buy uranium from the West African country.

This is an obvious effort, prior to Wilson’s going public, to leak information from the CIA to the press.

I will update once I complete reading the WSJ Article – available through here it appears.

Some fisking is in order:

The New York Times reporter who went to jail to avoid testifying in the CIA leak case was quizzed by the special prosecutor again yesterday and has agreed to return to the grand jury today.

Contrary to the spin the story, this also could mean Fitzgerald has opened up his line of questioning to her other sources based on information he has that is forcing Miller to finally cough up the goods.

Earlier conversations are potentially significant, because that suggests the special prosecutor leading the investigation is exploring whether there was an effort within the administration at an early stage to develop and disseminate confidential information to the press that could undercut former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife, Central Intelligence Agency official Valerie Plame.

Grasping speculation. And I wil explain why in the next snippet.

Mr. Wilson had become a thorn in the Bush administration’s side, …

Oh please, this is just grand standing silliness. No one outside the press corpe cared about Wilson or his lame claims. Wilson had a very small and inaccurate view of the big picture from his limited review in Niger and everyone knew it. To think Wilson’s little trip was going to trump mountains of intelligence gathered over decades is silly. And it was not going erase the fact that the Saddam nuclear program was only discovered when his brother-in-law defected and spilled the beans – illustrating just how difficult it was to get any intel on Hussein’s intentions. Only Joe Wilson and his groupies are silly enough to believe that!

Since then, her lawyers have told Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor investigating the leak of the CIA agent’s identity, that Ms. Miller’s notes show that she also spoke with Mr. Libby in late June, information that was not previously given to the grand jury.

Want to bet her notes show she talked to other people as well!