Fw: Re: [Peace-discuss] Wiretap Recorded Rep. Harman Promising to Intervene for AIPAC

Mon Apr 20 11:22:41 CDT 2009

Oh my, another example of entitlement, RHIP, a la Blagojovich. Please, God, may this make as big a stink, and have similar consequences. Thanks for a great posting, Bob
 --Jenifer

--- On Mon, 4/20/09, Robert Naiman <naiman.uiuc at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Robert Naiman <naiman.uiuc at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Wiretap Recorded Rep. Harman Promising to Intervene for AIPAC
To: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at illinois.edu>
Cc: "Peace-discuss List" <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Date: Monday, April 20, 2009, 9:04 AM

My guess would be: someone in the Administration who wants to remind
Members of Congress that their interactions with Israeli officials are
being monitored.

On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 8:57 AM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu> wrote:
> Perhaps the most interesting question is who leaked this information, and to
> what purpose.  Cui bono? Who profits from Harman's substantial
> embarrassment? --CGE
>
> Robert Naiman wrote:
>>
>> http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docid=hsnews-000003098436
>>
>> CQPolitics
>>
>> CQ HOMELAND SECURITY
>> April 19, 2009 – 8:49 p.m.
>>
>> Sources: Wiretap Recorded Rep. Harman Promising to Intervene for AIPAC
>>
>> By Jeff Stein, CQ SpyTalk Columnist
>>
>> 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
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> Rosen had been charged with two counts of conspiring to communicate,
>> and commnicating 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 AIPAC officials
>> Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman for trafficking in classified
>> information.
>>
>> Gonzales was engulfed by the NSA warrantless wiretapping scandal.
>>
>> And Jane Harman was relegated to chairing a House Homeland Security
>> subcommittee.
>>
>> Jeff Stein can be reached at jstein at cq.com.
>>
>> CQ © 2007 All Rights Reserved | Congressional Quarterly Inc. 1255 22nd
>> Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037 | 202-419-8500
>>
>> --
>> Robert Naiman
>> Just Foreign Policy
>> www.justforeignpolicy.org
>> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
>> _______________________________________________
>> Peace-discuss mailing list
>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss
>

-- 
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
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