The Justice Department's decision to drop espionage charges against two pro-Israel lobbyists will certainly pour jet fuel on conspiracy theories burning up the blogosphere over the Jane Harman wiretap controversy.
AIPAC Verdict Sure to Fuel More Harman Conspiracy Theories
Some wild imaginations have been at work in the blogarama coverage of revelations that the California Democrat was allegedly overheard on a wiretap promising a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby Bush administration officials to go lenient on Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, the two former officials of the American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC) set to be cleared of charges today, according to The Washington Post's Jerry Markon.
Now a whole new structure of conspiracy theories will have to be constructed around a Harman role in the case.
Some wild imaginations have already been at work on the story. Which is fine -- except when it misrepresents what I've been writing.
The drift of the latest commentary on the case is that Porter Goss, the former Republican congressman who headed the CIA during 2004-2006, was out to "get" Harman, his Democratic nemesis on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, when he was its chairman.
In other words, the question of what Israeli agents were up to in Washington has been smothered by an obsession with a Harman-Goss rivalry.
This angle took flight in an April 24 blog by the Jewish Telegraph Agency's Ron Kampeas, headlined "Why Did Goss finger Jane Harman?"
Well, the short answer is that he didn't, as was made plain in my stories, which were corroborated by the New York Times and Washington Post.
According to my sources and theirs, Goss was duty bound to notify congressional leaders that Harman had become enmeshed in a national security investigation, and that the FBI intended to question her about a wiretapped conversation she had with a suspected Israeli secret agent.
In a number of places, however, this was rendered as "CQ reported that Goss sought approval to pursue an investigation from both former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and former National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, but was rebuffed."
No. Goss sought clearance merely to NOTIFY then-House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi that Harman had been heard making potentially prosecutable statements on the wiretap.
Furthermore, of course, the CIA has no power to "investigate" Harman, or anyone in the U.S., in the usual sense of the word.
Over at The Cable, Laura Rozen endowed the CIA director with even further power and motivation to "go after" Harman, writing, "Goss's decision to authorize a FISA warrant that would tap a former fellow lawmaker and rival seems potentially troubling."
It would indeed be troubling if that were in fact what Goss did. But the problem with Rozen's assertion is that Goss had no power to "authorize a FISA warrant." As Rozen must know, that power belongs to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, upon petition by the Justice Department.
Rozen further muddies the issue by referring to "DOJ's burgeoning investigation into Harman."
Not only was a Justice Department "investigation" of Harman not "burgeoning," it had not even begun, as I and others have reported, based on first-hand sources.
The Justice Department was investigating secret Israeli operations in the United States, not Harman. (And now even that investigation has evidently come up empty).
Back in 2005, however, what the congresswoman was overheard saying to the wiretap target was troubling enough to prompt an investigation of her. But as I have reported, the FBI was blocked from questioning her by Attorney General Gonzales, with the support of National Intelligence chief John D. Negroponte, according to my now numerous sources.
Everything else written about hidden agendas in this case is speculation, which, by the looks of instant commentary on the AIPAC case, will undoubtedly continue to take the place of reporting on this sordid affair.
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Can someone please explain what this case is about? Putting the Harmon issue aside, exactly why were these men indicted? I've heard the arguments on both sides. But did they actually commit a crime? If so, was it done intentionally? If not, why was it pursued at all? Whom did they tick off?
There's a great deal more here than I've been able to uncover on-line...
Posted by: Soundbyte
| May 1, 2009 6:36 PM
Soundbyte, you might find some information through Justin Raimondo's Antiwar.com column. But here's an interview with Raimondo in which he gives some background.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5a0_1236929139
Posted by: Ike Hall
| May 2, 2009 7:10 PM
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