Hot Dog...

Christy breaks it down.

Fitzgerald Investigation/Libby Case Update, Part I

"I talked a little bit about legal questions that I had on this in comments the other day, but I wanted to reiterate one in particular here: when you have a "sealed indictment," it is sealed — as in not publicly available — for a reason. We used them a lot in drug conspiracy cases, where you had evidence of lower level people but were still working the investigation up the chain, and you would indict a lower level dealer when you had evidence on them, seal the indictment so as not to tip off higher level dealer/distributors, and then unseal the entire batch of indictments if and when you completed the investigation or you had to make an arrest on someone you thought was going to flee the jurisdiction.

Once you talk about an indictment that is under seal with anyone, you break that seal and the information contained within the indictment can become public. Which, frankly, defeats the whole point of having a sealed indictment in the first place." [more]