Washington Insider: White House Informed Of Indictment Outcome

Wayne Madsen
Oct. 20, 2005

October 19, 2005 -- As of 3:45 pm, there was still no word on indictments coming out of the Grand Jury on Leakgate. But WMR can report the following: At approximately 4:45 pm, a motorcade consisting of a limousine, an SUV with well-armed security personnel, and a Washington, DC police car pulled into the annex of the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse on the 3rd Streetside of the courthouse complex on Constitution Avenue in Washington, DC. The occupants of the motorcade spent approximately 40 minutes inside the courthouse. There is speculation that the motorcade was that of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Sources familiar with the operations of special prosecutors are of the opinion that given the makeup of the motorcade, the time spent by the party in the courthouse, and the moving of the Grand Jury today to new quarters, the Grand Jury and Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald have concluded their deliberations and, as both a formality and a courtesy, Gonzales was invited to the courtroom to hear the indictments, have an opportunity to question the jurors, and be the first to convey the outcome of the secret proceedings to the White House.

Although the Grand Jury has been meeting in the older Grand Jury room in the U.S. Courthouse, today it moved to a new Grand Jury room in the new courthouse annex.

Two courtroom sketch artists were also permitted to sketch the empty Grand Jury room in the old courthouse building that was used until last week by the Leakgate Grand Jury. Last week, this room was used for the testimony of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

A sketch drawn today of the Grand Jury room in the E. Barrett Prettyman US Courthouse building. This room, described as "dingy" by the sketch artist who drew the portrait, was the scene, until today, of the Grand Jury deliberations in Leakgate, as well as the scene of the Grand Jury deliberations in the Monica Lewinsky affair.

According to informed sources in Washington, Vice President Dick Cheney's Chef of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is expected to resign after he is, as expected, indicted for his role in outing a covert CIA agent, Valerie Plame Wilson, the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

After phony terrorist threats against New York's subway system last week and the Baltimore Harbor and Fort McHenry tunnels yesterday, the Bush White House is hopelessly diverting the public's attention away from the inevitability of a major October political scandal involving high level resignations following indictments of key administration officials. After the White House managed to orchestrate the beginning of Saddam Hussein's trial in Iraq to divert attention from Leakgate, the trial was quickly postponed to the end of November -- a story waiting on the shelf to be pulled off again when pre-trial hearings may begin in Leakgate.