The Washington Note reports:
An uber-insider source has just reported the following to TWN:
1. 1-5 indictments are being issued. The source feels that it will be towards the higher end.
2. The targets of indictment have already received their letters.
3. The indictments will be sealed indictments and “filed” tomorrow.
4. A press conference is being scheduled for Thursday.
The shoe is dropping.
More soon.
Comments?
Update [2005-10-25 19:54:49 by BooMan]: CBS Nightly News.
Rep. Conyers is calling on the blogosphere to co-sign his letter asking Bush not to pardon any of the Treasongate players. Huffington Post link here
A lot of people over at Kos were asking what it means that the indictments will be sealed. What I’ve gleaned is that there are two possibilities–one is that Fitzgerald wants to put some indictments in stone with this grand jury, let the jurors go, get a new jury, and continue investigating.
The other is that indictments are sealed as a matter of course until the target is in custody and then released.
Even if the indictments are sealed for a while as in the first case, it seems likely that the identities of the targets will leak out. What is not obvious is what the time frame for resignation of the defendants would be if the indictments were not officially public but everyone knew about them anyway.
said there were indications that another grand jury would be formed.
I am SO willing to wait a while longer — hell, even until, oh, say June of next year for the investigation to run its course….seat another GJ, Fitz, you just keep on keeping on — they’ll be running ads with Rotwiellers in before long!!
lol
was postulating the same thing on Al Franken’s last hour today; with this new information coming out about Cheney’s possible involvement, either a new GJ would have to be formed or Fitz could seek an extension of this current GJ. And it’s more likely a new GJ would be formed that wouldn’t be tainted by anyone else’s testimony, and also to give this current GJ a break, since they’ve been at this quite a spell…
A friend of mine was on a State, not Federal, Grand Jury and some of their indictments were sealed because “the person was co-operating with an on-going investigation.”
The intimation was a sealed indictment could be un-sealed PDQ if the indicted stopped co-operating.
comes arraignment. The defendant must present themselves to the authorities to be processed, i.e., fingerprinted, photoed, presented to a judge who reads their charges and allows them to enter their plea. Most courtrooms are publicly accessable; surely, some junior reporter has been assigned to sit in every possible courtroom waiting for these events. If the indicted do not voluntarily show up, they get arrested and we get to see them frog-marched like we’ve been dreaming.
There’s no way Rove or Libby or even some small fry in this case can sneak in the back door of the Federal Courthouse and confront the judge without being seen. The day they show up for their processing, the whole world will know, if not sooner. On that day, they should resign if not now after getting their target letters.
Rule 6. The Grand Jury
(e)(4) Sealed Indictment.
The magistrate judge to whom an indictment is returned may direct that the indictment be kept secret until the defendant is in custody or has been released pending trial. The clerk must then seal the indictment, and no person may disclose the indictment’s existence except as necessary to issue or execute a warrant or summons.
Source: Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, LII @ Cornell
Does this mean that even if they are indicted, we may not know who was indicted because they are sealed? I am confused.
via Steve Clemons
BREAKING: CBS To Report Fitzgerald Will Make His Decision Known Tomorrow
From the CBS Evening News, to air at 6:30PM:
CBS’ JOHN ROBERTS: Lawyers familiar with the case think Wednesday is when special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will make known his decision, and that there will be indictments. Supporters say Rove and the vice president’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby, are in legal jeopardy. But they insisted today the two are secondary players, that it was an unidentified Mr. X who actually gave the name of CIA agent V alerie Plame to reporters. Fitzgerald knows who Mr. X is, they say, and if he isn’t indicted, there’s no way Rove or Libby should be. But charges may not focus on the leak at all. Obstruction of justice or perjury are real possibilities. Did Rove or Libby change statements made under oath? Did they deliberately leave critical facts out of their testimony or did they honestly forget? Some Republicans urged Rove to step down if indicted. Not a happy prospect for president Bush.
<I’ve tuned to CBS a little late, but haven’t seen it.>
The material above quote is from Think Progress.
The mysterious Mr. X. Guess that leaves Condiliar out if it is a MR huh? Cheney is going down, down, down. I haven’t been this excited since oh, I don’t know when.
I know who did it!
It was Bolton, at the CIA, with a bug hidden in his mustache.
Clue! Do I win?
/Supporters say Rove and the vice president’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby, are in legal jeopardy. But they insisted today the two are secondary players, that it was an unidentified Mr. X who actually gave the name of CIA agent V alerie Plame to reporters. Fitzgerald knows who Mr. X is, they say, and if he isn’t indicted, there’s no way Rove or Libby should be. /
whaaaa!
Maybe Mr X cooperated and cut a deal.
Rumors everywhere without much substantiation and like everybody I’m on edge. Bathroom Time Out Frequency (BTOF) = High. It got so bad today I went and visited Wonkette for rumor and snark. At least she came through with a great line about “Slimy Thugs turning on each other like Runner-Up Beauty Queens.”
If it’s driving us crazy I can only imagine what it’s doing in Washbag.
OK, I’m not very familiar with grand juries and indictments and special prosecutors and all that.
But, I’m not going to let that stop me from issuing my own crackpot theory of what I think will happen.
Any of you lawyers out there, please blow holes in this as quickly as possible, since I am making some assumptions.
I think that the indictments that are coming from this grand jury are all going to be of the nature of perjury, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice.
Then I think that there will be a new grand jury that will move further in the direction of the Niger forgeries.
It’s my theory that Fitzgerald has enough information to pursue that now, but that he has not had enough time to do it yet.
So he will issue indictments for what Kay Bailey Hutchison would call ‘technicalities’ since he doesn’t have to know the whole background story to know if someone committed one of those crimes.
I am assuming that people who are indicted by one grand jury are not immune from being indicted by another for higher / different crimes. Is that true?
That perjury ‘technicality’ won’t apply to Cheney or Bush as they did not testify under oath is my understanding. One wonders why they always refuse to testify under oath as they did with the 9/11 hearings also…well I imagine we can guess why but why do they get away with not testifying under oath?
The NYT Cheney article says that Cheney DID testify under oath. An earlier NYT article said he didn’t.
It’s my understanding that a sitting President can’t be indicted anyway, so that explains how Bush can get away from it.
As for Cheney, he probably just has Bush write him an excuse note, like a little kid being excused from school for the day.
Keith O just quoted TWN!
And Howard Fineman just gave TWN his seal of approval! (is that like Good Housekeeping?)
CNN is reporting a poll wherein it hath been revealed:
Only 1 in 10 think the Bushies didn’t do something illegal or unethical.
So 90% of the population thinks the Bushies are either crooks or moral lepers.
Wow. That’s got to hurt.
Especially since no charges have been filed!
The rest of the article is the usual blather and the grand finale is Scotty doing his little tap dance, “We don’t comment on on-going investigations – blah, blah, bleech – “White House co-operating fully” – yadda-yadda-as-if-they-had-a-choice-yadda.
Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh.
Bunch of sheep. Now that even AM radio news is reporting the word indictment and the phrase ‘outing a CIA officer.”
Only Rip Van Winkle types have been asleep since 1999 — the awake population has known they’re crooks since 1999 and actually long before.