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What would the case against Bush look like?

Elizabeth de la Vega, a former federal prosecutor (she was Chief of the San Jose Branch U.S. Attorney’s Office), has constructed a theoretical convening of a grand jury in which she lays out the case that Bush and company deliberately and willfully deceived the nation about the Iraq war.

Her work is being released as a book, United States v. George W. Bush et al., but there’s a sizeable excerpt available on AlterNet.

“Elizabeth de la Vega, appearing on behalf of the United States.” That is a phrase I’ve uttered hundreds of times in twenty years as a federal prosecutor. I retired two years ago. So, obviously, I do not now speak for any U.S. Attorney’s Office, nor do I represent the federal government. This should be apparent from the fact that I am proposing a hypothetical indictment of the President and his senior advisers — not a smart move for any federal employee who wishes to remain employed. Lest anyone miss the import of this paragraph, let me emphasize that it is a disclaimer: I am writing as a private citizen.

Obviously, as a private citizen, I cannot simply draft and file an indictment. Nor can I convene a grand jury. Instead, in the following pages I intend to present a hypothetical indictment to a hypothetical grand jury. The defendants are President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. The crime is tricking the nation into war — in legal terms, conspiracy to defraud the United States. And all of you are invited to join the grand jury.

[...]

[One of my goals] is to send the message home — to whomever will listen. And this is it:

The President has committed fraud.

It is a crime in the legal, not merely the colloquial, sense.

It is far worse than Enron.

It is not a victimless crime.

We cannot shrug our shoulders and walk away.

» Full excerpt (AlterNet)