@@ AIPAC indictments imminent over spy case @@
Arash
May 17, 2005
U.S. probe of ex-AIPAC staffers focusing on alleged conversations
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By Ron Kampeas (email: rkampeas at jta.org) & Matthew Berger (email: mberger at jta.org)
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Steve Rosen, AIPAC's former policy director, in a 1991 file photo
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Keith Weissman, AIPAC's Iran specialist
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Howard Kohr, AIPAC's executive director
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http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/05/05/national/05spy.184.jpg
http://story.news.yahoo.com/photo/050504/480/vakw10105042216/print
Lawrence (larry) Franklin
Part time lecturer of modern World
Department of History
Shepherd College
Shepherdstown, West Virginia
Office: White Hall, room 316
email: lfrankli at shepherd.edu
Tel: 1-304-876-5329
Washington -- Conversations that two top American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIPAC) staffers allegedly had with a Washington Post
reporter and an Israeli diplomat appear to be a focus of a U.S. government investigation
that could lead to espionage charges against the two.
In addition, information garnered during the investigation into alleged leaks from a
Pentagon analyst to the two former AIPAC staffers suggests the FBI began probing AIPAC
officials just before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
There is mounting evidence that the government plans to indict Steve Rosen, AIPAC’s former
policy director, and Keith Weissman, its former senior Iran analyst.
The pro-Israel lobby fired the two men last month, citing new information.
But AIPAC is continuing to pay the men’s attorneys, incurring legal costs that one source
says have reached $1 million. Rosen is being represented by Abbe Lowell, one of Washington’s
top lawyers.
Howard Kohr, the organization’s executive director, told staff in a recent conference call
that he fired Rosen and Keith Weissman on the advice of Nathan Lewin, the attorney the
organization hired to deal with the case, JTA has learned. Lewin came across the
information in the course of reviewing the government’s case. Kohr told his staff that
Lewin did not reveal the nature of the information, according to sources.
The crux of the government’s case, multiple sources say, is Weissman’s meeting with Larry
Franklin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Franklin), a mid-level Pentagon Iran analyst,
on July 21, 2004, outside a Nordstrom’s outlet in the Pentagon City mall in Arlington,
Virginia.
Franklin allegedly warned Keith Weissman that Iranian agents in predominantly Kurdish
northern Iraq planned to kidnap, torture and kill American and Israeli agents in the
region.
Keith Weissman didn’t realize that Franklin apparently had been cooperating with the FBI
for several months and was being used in what is believed to have been a sting against
AIPAC staffers, sources said.
Keith Weissman immediately informed Steve Rosen and the information was relayed to the
White House, sources close to the defense said.
Rosen and Weissman then called Naor Gilon (http://www.sw-asia.com/People/Bio917.htm), who
heads the political desk at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, and Glenn Kessler
(http://www.cjrdaily.org/archives/000921.asp), the State Department correspondent for the
Washington Post, the sources said.
The FBI is believed to have co-opted Franklin a year earlier, after observing a lunchtime
meeting he had with Rosen and Weissman at Tivoli, a restaurant at 1700 North Moore Street
in Arlington, Virginia.
Map of the secret meeting's location
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=1700+N+Moore+St,+Arlington,+VA+22209,+USA&hl=en
Satellite photo of the secret meeting's location
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=1700+N+Moore+St,+Arlington,+VA+22209,+USA&ll=38.899963,-77.071589&spn=0.030642,0.042315&t=k&hl=en
In a criminal charge sheet filed earlier this month against Larry Franklin, the government
said that over lunch, Franklin verbally related top-secret information to two U.S.
citizens. JTA has confirmed the two were Rosen and Weissman.
The FBI apparently taped the July 21, 2004, conversation that Weissman and Rosen had with
Kessler, the Washington Post reporter, according to sources. Rosen and Weissman got in
touch with the White House and Kessler because they wanted to get the information out as
soon as possible, sources said. Franklin told the AIPAC staffers that he was giving them
the information because they had better connections than he did.
In the exchange, Steve Rosen, Keith Weissman and Kessler joked about “not getting in
trouble” over the information, according to sources.
Steve Rosen said that “at least we have no Official Secrets Act”, according to sources.
Acquaintances say that was a standard Rosen line, distinguishing the United States from
other nations — among them Britain — that criminalize the receipt of classified
information.
U.S. law is clear about assigning criminal penalties for leaking classified information,
but it is murky when it comes to receiving such information.
Prosecutors seem likely to allege that the conversation with Glenn Kessler and the comment
about an “Official Secrets Act” prove Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman knew the information
was classified, according to sources familiar with the FBI interrogations.
That’s where the conversation with Gilon comes in. While the simple receipt of classified
information is hard to prosecute, relaying it to a foreign official may violate the 1917
Espionage Act, which deals with obtaining classified information “to the advantage of any
foreign nation.”
It’s not clear how truthful the information Franklin relayed in the Pentagon City meeting
was, and Keith Weissman and Steve Rosen, to whom Weissman had relayed the information,
have claimed they didn’t know the information was classified.
Larry Franklin later broke off cooperation with the FBI and was arrested earlier this
month on charges of leaking classified information.
Franklin is due to appear at a preliminary hearing on May 27. His lawyer suggested he will
plead not guilty.
Franklin’s lawyer, Plato Cacheris, would not otherwise comment; neither would Weissman’s
lawyer, John Lassikas, or Lowell, Rosen’s attorney.
The FBI declined comment, as did the office of Paul McNulty, the federal attorney in
Virginia who is prosecuting the case against Franklin and who may indict Rosen and
Weissman as early as next month, according to sources close to the case.
The New York Times reported Saturday that the FBI wanted to speak to four journalists who
had information about the case, including one who worked for a major newspaper.
Kessler, who did not publish a story with the leaked information, declined to comment on
his news gathering.
AIPAC also maintained its official silence. When the organization fired Rosen and Weissman
last month it said it was because of “recently learned information and the conduct AIPAC
expects of its employees.”
If the government does plan to pursue espionage charges against the two former AIPAC
staffers, it could be a stretch, according to legal experts.
The language of the 1917 Espionage Act emphasizes solicitation — its first sentence
describes a transgressor as someone who pursues “information with intent.” Yet it was
Franklin who allegedly told Weissman that he had new information and suggested the
Pentagon City meeting. Sources say attorneys for the two men will argue entrapment.
A former close associate of Rosen confirmed that he routinely tells his sources that he
doesn’t want them to do or say anything that would risk their careers.
The Espionage Act also emphasizes injury to the United States, yet Naor Gilon — the
alleged recipient of the information from Rosen and Weissman — remains at his Washington
post eight months after the case first made headlines when FBI agents raided AIPAC
headquarters last August 27. The Israeli Embassy would not comment.
The initial conversation between Franklin, Rosen and Weissman in June 2003 — the one that
apparently led the FBI to move in on Franklin — dealt overwhelmingly with an unclassified
memo on the Bush administration’s Iran policy, sources close to the case said.
In its charge sheet against Franklin, the FBI mentions top-secret information about a
threat against U.S. troops in Iraq. Sources close to the case say Weissman and Rosen have
told investigators that they do not recall hearing that tidbit in their first meeting with
Franklin, suggesting it could have been made in passing and was not their central
interest.
The United States traditionally has been hesitant to prosecute those who receive
classified information. The Nixon administration, after failing legally to prevent The New
York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers, reportedly considered prosecuting the
paper after it published the classified documents relating to the Vietnam War. But it
backed off because of First Amendment considerations.
Just as prosecuting a journalist for mining a source for classified information could
chill reporting, prosecuting Rosen and Weissman could crimp lobbyists and advocates for
Jewish organizations and others.
The coin of a successful lobbyist is inside information, and Rosen’s success in his 23
years at AIPAC was his vast array of contacts, valued by AIPAC board members, members of
Congress and officials in four administrations.
Many Jewish organizational leaders meet routinely with Israeli officials and relay
information they might not even know is classified.
Indeed, it may be less the quality of the information Rosen and Weissman gathered and more
their closeness with power that drew the FBI’s attention. Sources close to the case say
the evidence suggests that the FBI targeted Rosen starting in early September 2001, when
The New York Times reported that President Bush was contemplating a meeting with the late
Palestinian Authority president, Yasser Arafat.
Condoleezza Rice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condoleezza_Rice), then Bush’s national
security adviser, was furious at the leak and demanded a clampdown on leakers. The
administration’s determination to keep its deliberations secret intensified after the
terrorist attacks days later on New York and Washington.
That, say sources, drew investigators to Rosen, who in the early 1980s had transformed
AIPAC from primarily a congressional lobby to one that excelled in access to the executive
branch.
AIPAC has returned to its congressional roots since the case broke, sources say, but
supporters worry that its effectiveness in lobbying any branch of government could be
impaired if the case goes to trial. http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news3/jta2.htm
F.B.I. Questions Journalists in Military Secrets Inquiry
http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.culture.iranian/msg/f01d061d38958d10?hl=en
Who Was Leaking to Whom?
http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.culture.iranian/msg/7bf566c615968155?hl=en
More charges to come in Pentagon analyst affair?
http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.culture.iranian/msg/70f3dd5d61965aa3?hl=en
Pentagon Analyst Charged With Disclosing Military Secrets
http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.culture.iranian/msg/6a4f42226915dc88?hl=en
Israel's Amen Corner silent on AIPAC-Franklin spy scandal
http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.culture.iranian/msg/d615db5d8344072d?hl=en
Israeli Spy Ring Busted! Developing ...
http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.culture.iranian/msg/63539a38fbce711e?hl=en
Pentagon Analyst Charged With Passing Secrets
http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.culture.iranian/msg/f301ecea2a77dba7?hl=en
FBI questions ex-Mossad official in AIPAC probe
http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.culture.iranian/msg/c7a9541d826c7f83?hl=en
Two Senior AIPAC Employees Ousted
http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.culture.iranian/msg/9878d41ac004fb6c?hl=en
Simply Crazy, or Crazy Like a Fox?
http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.culture.iranian/msg/9dd30bf1e9dcfeb6?hl=en
Revealed: Right-wing contacts with Iranian exiles
http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.culture.iranian/msg/49795cfee87ed5d1?hl=en
Did FBI Use Pentagon Analyst to 'Sting' AIPAC?
http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.culture.iranian/msg/0ca7579f5b1eb0c6?hl=en
More details emerge on AIPAC Chalabi boosters targeted in FBI probe
http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.culture.iranian/msg/910d054d54919318?hl=en
FBI steps up AIPAC probe
http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.culture.iranian/msg/ebd9ea9cd2dd3479?hl=en
Jail the War Party For treason
http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.culture.iranian/msg/c6618bf51fd07b24?hl=en
The Larry Franklin spy probe reveals an escalating fight over control of Iran policy
http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.culture.iranian/msg/d8a9ecd34b6a04ce?hl=en