Arianna reports on The Huffington Post that Judy Miller (the "journalist" who went to jail to protect a White House official who leaked Valerie Plame's identity) got a visit from John Bolton who has also been questioned in the CIA leak story. You might wonder what those two have in common and I'd have to guess that both are
chicken hawks and Arianna believes that John Bolton was Miller's source for all those scary stories about Iraq's WMD:
"Ever since President Bush slipped him through the UN's backdoor via a recess appointment, John Bolton has been giving reporters the cold shoulder. He strode past them when he showed up at the UN on August 2nd to present his letter of appointment, and WaPo columnist Al Kamen shows that he hasn't opened up much since (via TWN).
But Bolton apparently has a warm spot in his heart for at least one journalist: none other than Judy Miller.
According to a trusted Judy File source, Bolton recently took time out of his busy schedule to pay a jailhouse visit to Judy. "
The Los Angeles Times reports that Patrick Fitzgerald may be pursuing perjury charges:
[He] is considering perjury charges in his current assignment — as a special prosecutor investigating whether anyone in the Bush administration illegally leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame to journalists.
Plame's identity was first disclosed by syndicated newspaper columnist Robert Novak in what was widely seen as an attempt to discredit her husband, former diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV, for criticizing President Bush's rationale for attacking Iraq.
Fitzgerald's 20-month-long investigation initially focused on whether administration officials had broken a federal law that made it a felony to knowingly disclose the identity of covert agents. But more recently, the inquiry is believed to have shifted to the question of whether officials — including White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove — who discussed Plame with journalists may have misled Fitzgerald and his investigators.
Fitzgerald's tendency to invoke the laws against lying comes from two things, colleagues say: the particular way he uses grand jury testimony when he conducts an investigation, and his deep-seated aversion to being lied to.
Many prosecutors go before a grand jury only after they have a case pretty well wrapped up. But Fitzgerald's approach is to use the grand jury as a tool for compelling witnesses to disclose information. And if he thinks a witness has fiddled with the truth, associates say, he becomes indignant.
"He is an aggressive prosecutor," said Joshua Dratel, a New York lawyer who represented El-Hage. "If he feels someone is lying to him, he takes it personally."
Perjury charges can buttress an overall prosecution. They also enable prosecutors to bring charges against people when it may be difficult or impossible to prove them guilty of what are seen as their underlying crimes.
The perjury rap was "like using tax prosecutions for Al Capone," said Matthew Piers, a Chicago lawyer who represented a defendant Fitzgerald prosecuted for perjury after an investigation into possible terrorism.
