more judy miller.

* i just learnt that judy miller's attorney is bill bennetts brother. small world.

* "The grand jury has until Oct. 28 to return indictments if anyone is to be charged in the matter, and a lawyer close to the investigation says Fitzgerald should "be in a position to wrap up" the inquiry now that Miller finally has testified." (link)

* firedoglake: "I really do think this is a Rove orchestrated distraction. There has long been a rumor of big animosity between Cheney's office and RoveCo. over who fucked up in TraitorGate, and who will take the fall, with Rove's and Libby's lawyers doing amusing "anonymous source" battles in the press. To focus all the attention on Miller and Libby's pointless kabuki seems meant to keep the heat off of Rove himself. Nothing more." (link)

* arianna: "It defies credulity for Miller and the Times to keep insisting that Libby's earlier waiver was coerced when Libby says that it wasn't. I don't have much good to say about the vice president's chief of staff, but I don't doubt that he knows the difference between being coerced and acting on his own free will. How deep is the Times' contempt for its readers that it really thinks they'll buy the "Oh, Judy finally has the right waiver" line?" (link)

* " Judy started negotiations with Tate (libby's lawyer) at precisely the same time that Bolton visited her. Waas' article came out August 8. Negotiations started a week later, on August 15. Which is precisely the day Arianna had the scoop about Bolton's visit." (link)

* " Like Rove, Scooter seems to have tried to telegraph to a witness what he had testified presumably in hopes she would corroborate his story. In Rove's case, it didn't work because Cooper had no interest in lying for Rove (well, frankly, he seems to have missed the entire attempt). In Libby's case, if Judy were to lie it would put the NYT in serious jeopardy." (link)

* talkleft: "Back to the agreement between Fitzgerald and Miller. If Miller were to say she knew about Plame from another source, how could Fitzgerald agree not to question her about those sources? Wasn't his goal to find the leakers? Isn't he giving up that chance by agreeing to limit the questions to Libby? What if she talked to Cheney, Rove, Bolton, Hannah or Hadley about it, or to anyone in the White House Iraq Group? He'll never know. But maybe he doesn't care, because he is no longer investigating who leaked, only who lied." (link)

* talkleft: "Fitzgerald told the Court that Judith Miller was the last link to his investigation. His lack of interest in her other sources may indicate that he's concluded the leaking of Plame's identity as "Joseph Wilson's wife" but not by name or CIA function, is not a crime. I would agree with that." (link) http://talkleft.com/new_archives/012585.html
i dont necessarily agree with that. it could be that Fitz has already worked out who criminally outed Plame and he wanted miller to tie up a separate investigation. similarly, its still possible that fitz has espionage charges, not IIPA, in which case the 'wife' thing is irrelevant.

* "Why did it take the grand jury four hours to question Miller about two telephone calls?" (link)
this is a very interesting question. (altho its "one meeting and a phone call" - not "two phone calls") there are 3 main issues - the one i discussed yesterday which is the odd possibility that the libby thing is a red herring. another possibility is the awful thought that there are loads of loose ends to tie up - i bloody well hope that isnt true. the third possibility is that judy is too stupid, and kept talking and talking - even when questions moved out of the realm of libby and the two conversations. remember - the GJ are allowed to ask whatever the hell they want, and miller didnt have her lawyer in the room - and being a sycophantic girly whore, she just wanted to please the jurors like they were bill keller and/or ahmed chalabi.

i can hardly stand it! if fitzgerald waits till the 28th to announce the indictments, i think i'll be insane by then. hurry! hurry! hurry! and if he asks for an extension - arghhh! the only extension-scenario i could stand is fitz announced that he was rolling his hollinger investigation into the plame investigation and has called for kissinger and perle to testify - then i'd pop the champagne and pop the popcorn and pop whatever else i have lying around.