Pacific Views

You're getting warmer. Much warmer.

Newsday reports that the federal grand jury investigating the Plame leak has issued a fistfull of subpoenas against the White House, including the record of calls made from Air Force One during the week before Plame's identity was revealed in a column by Robert Novak.

Also sought in the wide-ranging document requests contained in three grand jury subpoenas to the Executive Office of President George W. Bush are records created in July by the White House Iraq Group, a little-known internal task force established in August 2002 to create a strategy to publicize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

And the subpoenas asked for a transcript of a White House spokesman's press briefing in Nigeria, a list of those attending a birthday reception for a former president, and, casting a much wider net than previously reported, records of White House contacts with more than two dozen journalists and news media outlets. [...]

The subpoenas underscore indications that the initial stages of the investigation have focused largely on the White House staff members most involved in shaping the administration's message on Iraq, and appear to be based in part on specific information already gathered by investigators, attorneys said Thursday.

If you're coming late to the Plame leak story, this September 2003 post by Mark A.R. Kleiman at Open Source Politics will get you started.