Calif. lawmaker linked to Israeli spy inquiry

By Daniel Luban | Last updated: May 11, 2009 - 3:46:09 PM

WASHINGTON (IPS/GIN) - U.S. government investigators caught a prominent Democratic congresswoman discussing what is alleged to be a “quid pro quo” deal involving the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Washington's powerful, hawkish pro-Israel lobby.

Representative Jane Harman (D-Calif.)

Rep. Jane Harman of California was recorded in 2005 on a National Security Administration wiretap promising a suspected Israeli spy that she would intervene on behalf of two AIPAC staffers accused of passing classified information to the Israeli government, and her interlocutor responded by promising to help get Rep. Harman appointed to a top congressional intelligence post, according to an article published April 19 by Congressional Quarterly.

Perhaps even more notably, then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales later halted an FBI investigation into Rep. Harman's actions because of Rep. Harman's political value as a defender of the George W. Bush administration's much-criticized warrantless wiretapping program, the CQ report states.

The Harman scandal's political repercussions appear to be growing, and it sits at the intersection of several controversial issues—among them, the influence of the “Israel lobby” on Capitol Hill, the complicity of top Democrats in Bush-era abuses, and the politicization of judicial proceedings under the Bush administration.

Rep. Harman has a reputation as one of the Democratic Party's foremost hawks, both on Israel-Palestine and on issues related to the “global war on terror.” She has long enjoyed a close relationship with AIPAC, and is scheduled to speak at the group's annual conference in May.

Allegations of a quid pro quo arrangement involving Rep. Harman and AIPAC are nothing new; Time magazine reported in 2006 that the FBI and Justice Department were investigating whether such a deal took place.

What was new in the recent CQ piece, written by reporter Jeff Stein on the basis of conversations with multiple senior national security officials speaking anonymously, were the claims that the deal had been recorded by the NSA wiretap and that Mr. Gonzales had squelched the investigation of Rep. Harman for political reasons.

In an April 20 online discussion, writer Stein stated the wiretap was court-approved and did not target Rep. Harman; rather, it was directed at the suspected Israeli agent with whom she was speaking.

Rep. Harman and her interlocutor were discussing the impending trial of Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, two senior AIPAC staffers who had been fired and charged with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 for passing classified information to the Israeli government.

The Rosen and Weissman trials are scheduled to start this summer; Lawrence Franklin, the Pentagon staffer who passed them the classified information, pled guilty to conspiracy in 2006 and was sentenced to over 12 years in prison.

Rep. Harman was recorded saying that she would she willing to “waddle into” the AIPAC case to try to get the Justice Department to reduce its charges against Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman. In return, the suspected Israeli agent promised to help lobby Nancy Pelosi, at the time the House minority leader and now its speaker, to convince Rep. Pelosi to appoint Ms. Harman as chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

Rep. Harman at the time was serving as the Democratic ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, but had a testy relationship with Rep. Pelosi; she was ultimately passed up for the committee chair in 2006 in favor of Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas.

The identity of Rep. Harman's interlocutor is unknown, although most analysts are assuming that he or she had significant ties to AIPAC, which has traditionally been dominant in lobbying members of Congress on matters pertaining to Israel.

Haim Saban, a prominent Israeli-American businessman, has been frequently mentioned in the “blogosphere” as a possible suspect, but this identification seems primarily to have been based on the fact that Mr. Saban's name was mentioned in the 2006 Time magazine piece about Rep. Harman. So far no solid evidence has emerged to link him to the incident.

One anonymous source told the Atlantic's Marc Ambinder that Rep. Harman's interlocutor was a U.S. citizen.

AIPAC denied having participated in any wrongdoing in the Harman scandal. “AIPAC would never engage in a quid pro quo related to a federal investigation or any other federal matter,” spokesman Patrick Dorton said. “That is absurd.”

Rep. Harman's office also released a statement denying any wrongdoing.

“The CQ Politics story simply recycles 3-year-old discredited reporting of largely unsourced material to manufacture a ‘scoop' out of widely known and unremarkable facts,” the statement said.

“If there is anything about this story that should arouse concern, it is that the Bush administration may have been engaged in electronic surveillance of members of the congressional Intelligence Committees.”

Rep. Harman's concern about the Bush administration's surveillance policies is somewhat ironic, given that she was previously the strongest defender of the administration's warrantless wiretapping program among congressional Democrats—and that she appears to have avoided a federal investigation of her AIPAC ties only as a result of her permissive stance on wiretapping.

Rep. Harman had previously helped convince the New York Times not to report on the program, and after the newspaper finally decided to run the story, she blasted its editors for compromising U.S. national security.

Due to Rep. Harman's value in providing bipartisan cover for the administration's policies, Mr. Gonzales intervened with CIA Director Porter Goss to derail a pending FBI investigation of her, including a court-approved wiretap.

New Israeli spy probe has a 30-year history, insiders say (FCN, 09-14-2004)

ADL: Censoring the Internet on behalf of Israel (FPP/Arabia.com 01-10-2001)

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