What if they gave an indictment and nobody came?

That's the dilemma that J. Dennis Hastert, former high school wrestling coach and current Speaker of the House, faces. Yesterday ABC News aired a breathless report stating that "sources" had identified Hastert as the subject of a Justice Department investigation concerning possible corruption in the incredible shrinking Abramoff Scandal. After the report aired, it took Justice Department officials about 14.9 seconds to categorically deny, on the record, that Hastert was being investigated. But ABC stands by its story.

It is highly unusual for a Justice Department spokesperson to officially rebut a story about an ongoing investigation. But that is precisely what happened yesterday. About all that can be confirmed is that Hastert may have written a letter on behalf of a tribe that may have been a client of Abramoff. But even that is not certain. Washington is a ruthless place and there are a lot of people who would like to skewer Hastert. An educated guess is that someone within the Justice Department was angry that Hastert and others have raised objections to the search the Justice Department conducted in the office of William Jefferson, a New Orleans area congressman who is suspected of accepting bribes and keeping his booty in a freezer. There's a constitutional argument to be made that Congressmen are protected from such searches within their actual offices. I'm not sure whether the argument would pass muster with the Supreme Court, but that's another issue.

More and more, politics around Washington are beginning to seem more like the Thermidor period of the French Revolution. Instead of guillotines, the preferred instrument of choice is a leak on the network news.