About a month ago, when Judy Miller agreed to testify and it was revealed that her deal included a committment by Fitz NOT to question her about issues outside what and when Libby told her about Plame, I diaried that Libby alone would be charged and that would be the end of it. My reasoning was that Fitz would never recommend that a GJ indict on charges that he didn't wholeheartedly believe that he could prove in court and that Miller's testimony was crucial. Without it, he could prove nothing against anybody, so he chose to take what he could get with that part of Miller's testimony and to let the rest go.
But now, having read the indictments against Libby, and having begun to better appreciate how Fitz works, how he built, brick-by-brick, the case against Go. Ryan, I'm not so sure that's the end of it.
Fitz appears to be as methodical and precise as a mathematician and as relentless as water finding its way to the sea. I now believe that these indictments against Libby may only be the beginning. The bulk of the "investigation" - the information gathering phase - may well be over, but the "proof" phase - the part that undermines and eventually breaches the levees surrounding the White House - has only just started.
It would be nice if these charges and the potential penalties induced Libby to "flip" and testify against others, but I don't think that's necessary. Once Libby has either been convicted in court or has plead out, Fitz will have established his first "proof", his first "known quantity." He will be able to say, "Now that we know X, Y and Z to be FACTS (based on their having been proven in court or through Libby's confession), we can combine these facts with other information gathered in the investigation to provide reasonable grounds to bring indictments against 'Official A' for crimes A, B and C."
What might those "crimes" be? It appears to me, again from reading the information provided in Libby's indictments, that Fitz may have evidence that Libby and Rove discussed Plame's status and what to do with it before Libby revealed that information to Miller et al and before Rove revealed that information to Novak. This may then be sufficient to charge them both with conspiracy. Conspiracy leads to motive. Motive, as Fitz stated in his news conference, is crucial to proving anything involving the two espionage statutes.
It may well be that, with these charges against Libby, Fitz has begun to seriously weaken the levee from below the water line. It may well be that, as with water finding its way to the sea, from this point gravity does most of the work.
We can only hope.