A Grand Jury is OPEN in the Plame Affair!! W. House aids called!!

[ShaneGR]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4226902/

(snip)
A federal grand jury has questioned one current and one former aide to President Bush, and investigators have interviewed six others in an effort to discover who revealed the name of an undercover CIA officer to a newspaper columnist, sources involved in the case said yesterday.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said yesterday that he talked to the grand jury last week. Mary Matalin, former counselor to Vice President Cheney, testified Jan. 23, the sources said. Neither is suspected by prosecutors of having exposed undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame, but both were questioned about White House public relations strategy, the sources said.

FBI agents have interviewed at least eight current and former Bush aides -- including Matalin and McClellan -- and have questioned them about thousands of e-mails that the White House surrendered in October, along with stacks of call logs and calendars, the sources said.

The logs indicate that several White House officials talked to columnist Robert D. Novak shortly before July 14, when he published a column quoting "two senior administration officials" saying that Plame, "an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction," had suggested her husband for a mission to Niger to investigate whether Iraq tried to acquire uranium there as part of an effort to develop nuclear weapons.

[ShaneGR]

1. Judo

CHOP!

[bryant69]

2. Oh my

This is huge news.

We'll have to see what happens, but the Bush White House is really on the skids.

Bryant
check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[ShaneGR]

3. When do we get a Perp Walk?

I can't wait.

[hobbes159]

5. When I close my eyes and picture....

...Cheney, Rove, Libby, and others all being marched out the front door in handcuffs, trying to shield their faces from the cameras (doing that thing where they pull their jackets over their heads)... oh, it gives me such a warm, happy glow inside.... :-)

[Bandit]

4. Who serves on a Grand Jury? ~ Anyone here know?

Is this just another partisan group that is going through the motions or are they general public figures?

[hobbes159]

6. Empanelled the same way a regular hury trial is

You get picked at random to serve, so really NO chance of bias there...

[ShaneGR]

7. Generally a prosecuting office calls them just like a normal jury

But the key here is that a PROSECUTING office thinks they may have enough evidence for an indictment.

[Jacobin]

9. Keep in mind that a grand jury always does EXACTLY what

the prosecuting attorney presenting the case wants it to do. In this case, the prosecutor apparently wants a trophy to further his career (thank goddess) and is after Scooter Libby like white on rice

[Stephanie]

10. A grand jury is pulled from general public, AFAIK

I'm in the grand jury pool here in NYC. Every time I get called for jury duty it is to be on a grand jury, and usually it is to sit for one month, either mornings or afternoons. (So far I have managed to wriggle out of actually serving. Can't afford the time off work!) The grand jury hears the case as presented by prosecutors (no defense case is presented) and then decides whether the case is worthy to proceed with indictments and trial. Generally grand juries go along with what the prosecutor wants.

At least that is my layman's understanding. Corrections welcome.

[SpiralHawk]

8. Follow the e-mail cookie crumbs...

to where they merge with the trail of pretzel crumbs.

Let the truth be revealed. May justice prevail.

[ShaneGR]

11. Hopefully the prosecuting attorney wants to be famous

We need a real gung-ho go for the balls guy.

[hedda_foil]

12. Actually the prosecutor is terrific.

He's the guy who pursued and finally managed to charge Illinois Gov George Ryan (R) and all of his sleazy underlings on literally hundreds of counts. He's really, really good. I was stunned, in fact, when he was chosen because he's anything but a patsy. The pressure from the CIA to appoint a REAL prosecutor must have been enormous because this is NOT the guy to choose if you want to run a cover up or even a limited hangout operation.