I apologize for not updating Traitorgate news yesterday, but Dan Froomkin tells you everything you need to know

The revelation du jour is from Murray Waas:

New York Times reporter Judith Miller told the federal grand jury in the CIA leak case that she might have met with I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby on June 23, 2003 only after prosecutors showed her Secret Service logs that indicated she and Libby had indeed met that day in the Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House, according to attorneys familiar with her testimony.

When a prosecutor first questioned Miller during her initial grand jury appearance on September 30, 2005 sources said, she did not bring up the June 23 meeting in recounting her various contacts with Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Cheney. Pressed by prosecutors who then brought up the specific date of the meeting, Miller testified that she still could not recall the June meeting with Libby, in which they discussed a controversial CIA-sponsored mission to Africa by former Ambassador Joe Wilson, or the fact that his wife, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA.

When a prosecutor presented Miller with copies of the White House-complex visitation logs, she said such a meeting was possible.

And by sheer coincidence (wink) Judy discovered her notes from the July 23 meeting–they must’ve fallen behind the sofa–and turned them over to Fitzgerald. Heh.

Dave Johnston reports in the New York Times that Fitzgerald

… is focusing on whether Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, and I. Lewis Libby Jr., chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, sought to conceal their actions and mislead prosecutors, lawyers involved in the case said Thursday.

Among the charges that Mr. Fitzgerald is considering are perjury, obstruction of justice and false statement – counts that suggest the prosecutor may believe the evidence presented in a 22-month grand jury inquiry shows that the two White House aides sought to cover up their actions, the lawyers said.

Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby have been advised that they may be in serious legal jeopardy, the lawyers said, but only this week has Mr. Fitzgerald begun to narrow the possible charges. The prosecutor has said he will not make up his mind about any charges until next week, government officials say.

With the term of the grand jury expiring in one week, though, some lawyers in the case said they were persuaded that Mr. Fitzgerald had all but made up his mind to seek indictments. None of the lawyers would speak on the record, citing the prosecutor’s requests not to talk about the case.

(Singing:

Anticipation
Anticipation
Is makin’ me late
Is keepin’ me waitin’

…)

I’m not making predictions, but you know that if Fitzgerald doesn’t bring indictments the righties are going to be insufferable. I don’t even want to think about it. On the other hand, if there are indictments, the explosion of slime and invective the Right will unleash on Fitzgerald will be awesome. The planet will not have seen the like since the Krakatoa eruption of 1883.

Here’s another interesting tidbit from the Johnston article:

But Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby may not be the only people at risk. There may be others in the government who could be charged for violations of the disclosure law or of other statutes, like the espionage act, which makes it a crime to transmit classified information to people not authorized to receive it.

It is still not publicly known who first told the columnist Robert D. Novak the identity of the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson. Mr. Novak identified her in a column on July 14, 2003, using her maiden name, Valerie Plame. Mr. Fitzgerald knows the identity of this source, a person who is not believed to work at the White House, the lawyers said.

Bob “The Reptile” Novak said this of his source:

During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA’s counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger.”

Make of that what you will.

They’re also anticipatin’ at the White House. At the Washington Post, Jim VandeHei and Peter Baker write “the surreal silence in the Roosevelt Room each morning belies the nervous discussions racing elsewhere around the West Wing.”

Out of the hushed hallway encounters and one-on-one conversations, several scenarios have begun to emerge if Rove or vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis Libby is indicted and forced out. Senior GOP officials are developing a public relations strategy to defend those accused of crimes and, more importantly, shield Bush from further damage, according to Republicans familiar with the plans. And to help steady a shaken White House, they say, the president might bring in trusted advisers such as budget director Joshua B. Bolten, lobbyist Ed Gillespie or party chairman Ken Mehlman.

This is the part I found most interesting:

These tentative discussions come at a time when White House senior officials are exploring staff changes to address broader structural problems that have bedeviled Bush’s second term, according to Republicans who said they could speak candidly about internal deliberations only if they are not named. But it remains unclear whether Bush agrees that changes are needed and the uncertainty has unsettled his team. …

… Bush implicitly acknowledged the distractions in answer to a reporter’s question during a Rose Garden appearance with visiting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday, while reassuring the public that he remained focused on the pressing matters of state facing his White House.

“There’s some background noise here, a lot of chatter, a lot of speculation and opining,” Bush said. “But the American people expect me to do my job, and I’m going to.”

Although he’s generally disinterested in the governing thing, he may get to it any day now.

Many allies blame the insularity of his team for recent missteps, such as the Miers nomination. Even some sympathetic to her believe the vetting process broke down because as White House counsel she was so well known to the president that skeptical questions were not asked.

Some GOP officials outside the White House say they believe the president rejects the idea that there is anything fundamentally wrong with his presidency; others express concern that Bush has strayed so far from where he intended to be that it may require drastic action.

I infer that Bush is not dealing with any of this well. He’s buried his twitchy little head in the sand and hopes the bad things will go away. But indictments or no indictments, if Bush’s second term continues to go south, Capitol Hill Republicans will have to do an intervention to salvage what’s left of it.

The other information in the WaPo article that interested me is that Bush’s ever-shrinking inner circle is burning out.

Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. gets up each day at 4:20 a.m., arrives at his office a little over an hour later, gets home between 8:30 and 9 p.m. and often still takes calls after that; he has been in his pressure-cooker job since Bush was inaugurated, longer than any chief of staff in decades. “He looks totally burned out,” a Republican strategist said.

Others, including Rove, Bolten, counselor Dan Bartlett, senior adviser Michael J. Gerson and press secretary Scott McClellan, have been running at full tilt since 1999, when the Bush team began gearing up in Austin for the first campaign.

Compare/contrast with Bush, who is famous for his extensive vacations and early bedtimes. Bush must be the most well-rested President since William Henry Harrison spent his entire one month in office on his deathbed.

Update: Fitzgerald launches web site! Could it be, as Froomkin suggests, “he’s getting ready to release some new legal documents? Like, maybe, some indictments? It’s certainly not the action of an office about to fold up its tents and go home.”

Fitzgerald’s office won’t say, of course.

It has occurred to me that the Grand Silence coming from Fitzgerald must be more terrifying to the potential targets than a leakier investigation, like Ken Starr’s. If information were leaking out, the Bushies would at least have something to do; they could be busily spinning away every little drop. But there’s nothing the Bushies can do now but wait.