Probe of Harman's AIPAC Ties Confirmed
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- Written by Dan Eggen, Washington Post Staff Writer Dan Eggen, Washington Post Staff Writer
- Published: 20 April 2009 20 April 2009
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Federal law enforcement sources confirmed yesterday that the FBI opened an investigation in 2005 into whether Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) improperly enlisted the aid of a pro-Israel lobbying group, but they cautioned that no evidence of wrongdoing was found.
The inquiry focused on whether Harman had made promises to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in exchange for its support of her desire to become chairman of the House intelligence committee if Democrats take control of the House, several law enforcement sources said.
Although the case is still considered open, officials said, the allegations have not been substantiated, and there has been no significant investigative activity on the issue in recent months. The inquiry was first reported by Time magazine.
Harman -- who has hired prominent GOP lawyer Theodore B. Olson, a former solicitor general -- told Time that the allegations were "irresponsible, laughable and scurrilous."
Sources said the Harman inquiry was an outgrowth of the ongoing criminal prosecution of two former AIPAC lobbyists who are charged with violating the Espionage Act in connection with receiving national defense information and transmitting it to journalists and employees of the Israeli Embassy who were not entitled to receive it. Lawrence Franklin, a former Pentagon analyst who pleaded guilty to passing government secrets to the two lobbyists, was sentenced this year to more than 12 years in prison.
Time reported that investigators were looking at whether Harman -- who is involved in an intraparty dispute over who might head the intelligence panel -- promised to try to persuade the Justice Department to "go lighter" on the former AIPAC officials.
AIPAC spokesman Patrick Dorton said yesterday that the group "would never engage in a quid pro quo in relation to a federal investigation or other federal matter."
Jane Harman Recorded On Wiretap Promising to Intervene for AIPAC, Say Sources
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- Written by Jeff Stein, CQ SpyTalk Columnist Jeff Stein, CQ SpyTalk Columnist
- Published: 20 April 2009 20 April 2009
- Hits: 4260 4260
Rep. Jane Harman , the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department to reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington.
Harman was recorded saying she would “waddle into” the AIPAC case “if you think it’ll make a difference,” according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript.
(Join Jeff Stein for a live online chat at 3:30 p.m. today about his story, or submit a question for Jeff.)
In exchange for Harman’s help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, which the Democrats were heavily favored to win.
Seemingly wary of what she had just agreed to, according to an official who read the NSA transcript, Harman hung up after saying, “This conversation doesn’t exist.”
Harman declined to discuss the wiretap allegations, instead issuing an angry denial through a spokesman.
“These claims are an outrageous and recycled canard, and have no basis in fact,” Harman said in a prepared statement. “I never engaged in any such activity. Those who are peddling these false accusations should be ashamed of themselves.”
It’s true that allegations of pro-Israel lobbyists trying to help Harman get the chairmanship of the intelligence panel by lobbying and raising money for Pelosi aren’t new.
They were widely reported in 2006, along with allegations that the FBI launched an investigation of Harman that was eventually dropped for a “lack of evidence.”
What is new is that Harman is said to have been picked up on a court-approved NSA tap directed at alleged Israel covert action operations in Washington.
And that, contrary to reports that the Harman investigation was dropped for “lack of evidence,” it was Alberto R. Gonzales, President Bush’s top counsel and then attorney general, who intervened to stop the Harman probe.
Why? Because, according to three top former national security officials, Gonzales wanted Harman to be able to help defend the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was about break in The New York Times and engulf the White House.
As for there being “no evidence” to support the FBI probe, a source with first-hand knowledge of the wiretaps called that “bull****.”
“I read those transcripts,” said the source, who like other former national security officials familiar with the transcript discussed it only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of domestic NSA eavesdropping.
“It’s true,” added another former national security official who was briefed on the NSA intercepts involving Harman. “She was on there.”
Such accounts go a long way toward explaining not only why Harman was denied the gavel of the House Intelligence Committee, but failed to land a top job at the CIA or Homeland Security Department in the Obama administration.
Gonzales said through a spokesman that he would have no comment on the allegations in this story.
The identity of the “suspected Israeli agent” could not be determined with certainty, and officials were extremely skittish about going beyond Harman’s involvement to discuss other aspects of the NSA eavesdropping operation against Israeli targets, which remain highly classified.
But according to the former officials familiar with the transcripts, the alleged Israeli agent asked Harman if she could use any influence she had with Gonzales, who became attorney general in 2005, to get the charges against the AIPAC officials reduced to lesser felonies.
AIPAC official Steve Rosen had been charged with two counts of conspiring to communicate, and communicating national defense information to people not entitled to receive it. Weissman was charged with conspiracy.
AIPAC dismissed the two in May 2005, about five months before the events here unfolded.
Harman responded that Gonzales would be a difficult task, because he “just follows White House orders,” but that she might be able to influence lesser officials, according to an official who read the transcript.
Justice Department attorneys in the intelligence and public corruption units who read the transcripts decided that Harman had committed a “completed crime,” a legal term meaning that there was evidence that she had attempted to complete it, three former officials said.
And they were prepared to open a case on her, which would include electronic surveillance approved by the so-called FISA Court, the secret panel established by the 1979 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to hear government wiretap requests.
First, however, they needed the certification of top intelligence officials that Harman’s wiretapped conversations justified a national security investigation.
Then-CIA Director Porter J. Goss reviewed the Harman transcript and signed off on the Justice Department’s FISA application. He also decided that, under a protocol involving the separation of powers, it was time to notify then-House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Minority Leader Pelosi, of the FBI’s impending national security investigation of a member of Congress — to wit, Harman.
Goss, a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, deemed the matter particularly urgent because of Harman’s rank as the panel’s top Democrat.
But that’s when, according to knowledgeable officials, Attorney General Gonzales intervened.
According to two officials privy to the events, Gonzales said he “needed Jane” to help support the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was about to be exposed by the New York Times.
Harman, he told Goss, had helped persuade the newspaper to hold the wiretap story before, on the eve of the 2004 elections. And although it was too late to stop the Times from publishing now, she could be counted on again to help defend the program
He was right.
On Dec. 21, 2005, in the midst of a firestorm of criticism about the wiretaps, Harman issued a statement defending the operation and slamming the Times, saying, “I believe it essential to U.S. national security, and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities.”
Pelosi and Hastert never did get the briefing.
And thanks to grateful Bush administration officials, the investigation of Harman was effectively dead.
Many people want to keep it that way.
Goss declined an interview request, and the CIA did not respond to a request to interview former Director Michael V. Hayden , who was informed of the Harman transcripts but chose to take no action, two knowledgeable former officials alleged.
Likewise, the first director of national intelligence, former ambassador John D. Negroponte, was opposed to an FBI investigation of Harman, according to officials familiar with his thinking, and let the matter die. (Negroponte was traveling last week and did not respond to questions relayed to him through an assistant.)
Harman dodged a bullet, say disgusted former officials who have pursued the AIPAC case for years. She was protected by an administration desperate for help.
“It’s the deepest kind of corruption,” said a recently retired longtime national security official who was closely involved in AIPAC investigation, “which was years in the making.
“It’s a story about the corruption of government — not legal corruption necessarily, but ethical corruption.”
Ironically, however, nothing much was gained by it.
The Justice Department did not back away from charging Rosen and fellow AIPAC official Keith Weissman with espionage (for allegedly giving classified Pentagon documents to Israeli officials).
Gonzales was engulfed by the NSA warrantless wiretapping scandal.
And Jane Harman was relegated to chairing a House Homeland Security subcommittee.
Join Jeff Stein for a live online chat at 3:30 p.m. today about his story, or submit a question for Jeff.
Jeff Stein can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
This story originally ran as CQ Homeland Security's Spytalk column.
ADL assails Michigan State University's Tutu invitation
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- Written by Matthew Miller Matthew Miller
- Published: 13 April 2009 13 April 2009
- Hits: 4195 4195
Academic freedom cited by Simon in response to criticism
EAST LANSING - Michigan State University announced last week that retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu would give this year's commencement address. Two days later, the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy organization, filed a protest.
In a letter to Michigan State University President Lou Anna Simon, two ADL officials wrote that Tutu, whose opposition to apartheid in the 1980s won him the Nobel Peace Prize, had made statements about Israel that "conveyed outright bigotry against ... the Jewish people."
They said a proposed cultural and academic boycott of Israel, which Tutu supports, was "based on ideas that are anti-Semitic and should be anathema to any institution of higher learning truly committed to academic freedom."
They asked MSU to reconsider the invitation.
Simon responded this week. She said no.
While noting that university leaders had publicly opposed such a boycott, she wrote, "Michigan State University rejects the notion that free intellectual exchange and scholarly activities should be casualties of political disagreement."
It's an apparently open and shut matter, but it has set off minor ripples on campus.
Professors and students interviewed Thursday were unanimous in their support of Simon's stance on academic freedom and on allowing Tutu to speak.
Opinions diverged on the ADL's tactics and on the boycott that Tutu has advocated.
David Wiley is a professor of sociology who headed MSU's African Studies Center for 30 years before stepping down this year. He played a role in MSU's decision to divest from South Africa in 1978. And he called the ADL's request "improper."
"Again and again, the ADL and some other Jewish agencies confuse being critical of Israel with being anti-Semitic," he said. "In fact, Bishop Tutu has always been for inclusion of the marginal, whether it's blacks in South Africa or the Jewish community."
Tutu has said he supports the existence of the state of Israel. He also has compared the treatment of Palestinians to that of blacks under apartheid.
And he is involved in the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, which wants to cut relations with - and investment in - Israeli academic and cultural institutions until Israel withdraws from the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Such a boycott, said Ken Waltzer, director of Jewish Studies at MSU, would dramatically hinder the work of his program. It would punish those Israelis who are most committed to peace.
And it "rests on an analogy between South Africa and Israel which is patently false and ignoble."
Geoff Levin, an MSU sophomore and the Israel advocacy intern at MSU Hillel, said he respects Tutu's accomplishments, but is unhappy with his views on Israel.
"I wouldn't push to have him removed from the speaking list at all because of the great works he has done," he said.
"But I do feel like the pro-Israel community and the Jewish community need to voice our discontent with what he's been pushing for."
Salah Hassan is an MSU English professor and a member of Michigan Professors Against Occupation, an ad hoc group that opposes the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
"The best way to put an end to this call for a boycott," he said, "would be to end the occupation."
"It's fully within the rights of ADL to protest someone coming who they don't like," he said.
"But realistically, had the president of MSU agreed to retract the invitation, that would have stirred a significant controversy."
Additional Facts May 8 convocationRetired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu will be the featured speaker at MSU's spring undergraduate convocation. The ceremony will be held at 1 p.m. May 8 at the Jack Breslin Student Events Center. The event is free and open to the public. Tickets are not required.
What Iran’s Jews Say
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- Written by ROGER COHEN, Esfahan, Iran ROGER COHEN, Esfahan, Iran
- Published: 13 April 2009 13 April 2009
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At Palestine Square, opposite a mosque called Al-Aqsa, is a synagogue where Jews of this ancient city gather at dawn. Over the entrance is a banner saying: “Congratulations on the 30th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution from the Jewish community of Esfahan.”
The Jews of Iran remove their shoes, wind leather straps around their arms to attach phylacteries and take their places. Soon the sinuous murmur of Hebrew prayer courses through the cluttered synagogue with its lovely rugs and unhappy plants. Soleiman Sedighpoor, an antiques dealer with a store full of treasures, leads the service from a podium under a chandelier.
I’d visited the bright-eyed Sedighpoor, 61, the previous day at his dusty little shop. He’d sold me, with some reluctance, a bracelet of mother-of-pearl adorned with Persian miniatures. “The father buys, the son sells,” he muttered, before inviting me to the service.
Accepting, I inquired how he felt about the chants of “Death to Israel” — “Marg bar Esraeel” — that punctuate life in Iran.
“Let them say ‘Death to Israel,’ ” he said. “I’ve been in this store 43 years and never had a problem. I’ve visited my relatives in Israel, but when I see something like the attack on Gaza, I demonstrate, too, as an Iranian.”
Israeli forces reintroduce use of high velocity tear gas projectile against demonstrators in Ni’lin
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- Written by ISM ISM
- Published: 12 April 2009 12 April 2009
- Hits: 3760 3760
Posted on: April 12, 2009 | ShareThis
10 April 2009
The villagers of Ni’lin continued their struggle against the construction of the Apartheid Wall on their land with another weekly Friday demonstration on the 10th of April. After the mid-day prayer, around 100 villagers carried signs against the occupation and marched towards the construction site of the Wall. The nonviolent demonstrators split into two groups, but both groups were stopped by the Israeli army, who had already taken up position on the outskirts of the village. After villagers confronted the soldiers with speeches and chanting, Israeli forces opened fire with tear gas and sound bombs from about 20 meters away. Some of the village youth responded by throwing stones. Due to the large amount of weaponry fired by the soldiers, the demonstrators were forced to return to the village. The army placed snipers on the roof of a Palestinian residence inside the village and one young man was shot in his leg with live ammunition (0.22 caliber).
In addition to shooting live ammunition at the demonstrators , the army restarted firing high-velocity tear gas canisters. This type of tear gas hasn’t been used in Ni’lin since solidarity activist Tristan Anderson was critically injured after being shot in the head with a canister on the 13th of March. Almost a month later, Tristan Anderson is still listed in critical condition in Tel Hashomer hospital near Tel Aviv after undergoing three separate brain surgeries. These new high-velocity tear gas canisters have injured other Palestinians during nonviolent demonstrations in the West Bank, including a young man from Ni’lin who had his leg shattered when he was hit with this projectile in January 2009.
At this weeks demonstration, two Palestinians were hit and injured with high-velocity tear gas canisters. One man was hit in his back and had to be taken to the local clinic for treatment. The other villager was hit in his jaw with the canister and also in his hand when he tried to protect his face. He was taken to the hospital in Ramallah. Two medics, one international and one filmmaker were also hit with tear gas canisters, and 18 people suffered from tear gas inhalation and were treated by medics. Eight other demonstrators were also shot by Israeli forces with rubber-coated steel bullets.