<snip>
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I was just in the courtroom, Wolf, and what happened is a magistrate Judge Deborah Robertson (ph) entered at 12:37, and grand jury members entered, 18 of them, and then the foreperson. The judge asked if they had materials to present to the court. They said yes. The foreperson took that up to the clerk, and then she said, are there are motions? They said, yes. And then she said, the materials will be tendered to the deputy clerk for filing. So there was no reading of what these motions. There was no reading of anyone's name. So now everyone is lined up outside the deputy clerk's office waiting to get that materials.
BLITZER: So we'll get the documents, but what -- talk to us in English, Kathleen, what this might mean.
KOCH: That's what I don't know, Wolf. We're waiting really to find out when this material comes in, whether it will have names. We assume, again, that because there was -- there were materials to be presented to the court, there were motions, that those motions consist of something relatively important.
Hang on, Wolf. I'll put my microphone on.
But we're not really sure at this point what they will include. Again, the special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, was there, came into the courtroom, sat at the table, as did the members of the grand jury. They sat, some again, 18 of them.
But, Wolf, we're really not sure what that means, and I've just lost my earpiece. Why don't we go to Bob Franken.
BLITZER: Hold on, bob. We'll get back to you. We'll let both of you hook up.
Joe Digenova was listening to this, Jeff Toobin was listening to this, both excellent lawyers, both former prosecutors.
Joe, first you, what did you understand from that?
DIGENOVA: Well, sometimes -- well, obviously, the indictment is handed up. It's always handed up in a package, and it could be that the motions have something to do with the manner in which the case is going to be assigned. There may have been a discussion with Judge Hogan about that the other day during that 45-minute meeting, if it had something to do with keeping certain things under seal. It's hard to tell at this point.
BLITZER: Jeff Toobin, what about you it?
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SR. LEGAL ANALYST: That's the word that Kathleen used that jumped out at me, motions, because this is actually -- I mean, it's funny to see all this sort of attention what in on an ordinary day in a U.S. attorney's office is totally routine and boring process, which is walking the indictment from the grand jury room over to the magistrate, who's on duty, and literally handing it up. I mean, that's what they call handing it up. You hand it to the judge who is sitting on the bench. They call it handing up, and that's essentially the end of it, and the document become public.
I don't know anything about motions that would be presented there. And maybe Joe could help us, because every office is a little different, and he used to be the boss there. But I'm a little puzzled by the reference to motions.
DIGENOVA: Well, when I was U.S. attorney in that very courthouse, I never presented a single indictment that had a motion attached at the time and handed up to the magistrate. So it could have something to do with classified information, it could have something to do with specially assigning the cases, not putting it on the wheel, where the judges get cases by random, or it could have something to do with keeping it sealed, although that seems unlikely since Patrick Fitzgerald is holding a news conference at 2:00 p.m.
TOOBIN: That certainly doesn't seem -- I mean, that occurred to me. But Patrick Fitzgerald just scheduled a news conference. So I don't see how he could have at the same time claim that an indictment needs to be sealed.
<snip>
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0510/28/bn.02.html
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