[Pen-l] The NSA, Israel, & my Congresscritter

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

from Juan Cole:
>>Jeff Stein of CQ.com reported on Sunday evening that the National Security Agency had picked up a telephone conversation by Representative Jane Harman (D-CA) with a suspected spy for Israel. It is alleged that in the conversation, the spy urged Harman to intervene to stop the prosecution for espionage of Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, two career lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who headed up its Middle East bureau. The Israeli agent promised Harman the chairmanship of the Senate Intelligence committee, but appears to have gone too far in doing so.

You see, for someone to call Harman and ask her to weigh in with the
Justice Department on behalf of Rosen and Weissman is not illegal. But
once she was offered a position, the conversation was suddenly about a
bribe. At that point she is said to have hung up after asserting "This
conversation never happened."

Israel lobbies did fundraising for Nancy Pelosi in 2006 in hopes of
getting Harman the chairmanship.

Two things here. It should be remembered that this whole affair has
been about getting up a war on Iran. That was the point of Franklin
leaking to Rosen and Weissman in the first place. Someone should go
back through Harman's statements on Iran.

Second, the transcript should be released and if it is as alleged,
Harman must resign. Congress declares wars or implicitly authorizes
them. American soldiers have a right to know that the representatives
who send them to war are doing so on behalf of US interests. And that
congressional intelligence reports are not plants by a foreign
intelligence service.

Let us just stop and review what is being alleged, and to underline
what it means for US security and policy.

The US is spied on, and a classified Pentagon document is passed to
the Israeli embassy by AIPAC officials. They are caught because the
FBI had them under surveillance. Apparently the FBI is one of the few
US government institutions that is not corrupt on the issue of foreign
influence on US institutions and policy. Then when the two AIPAC spies
are indicted, a Mossad agent attempts to derail the prosecution by
suborning a member of Congress and promising her the chairmanship of
the Intelligence Committee.

Harman is denying it all, of course. But then so did Rosen and
Weissman deny it all (or allege that the lack of a US official secrets
act means that their passing of a classified Pentagon document to a
Mossad agent was not in fact treason or illegal). Harman's denial is
clever, since the NSA wiretap is presumably classified, and so she
can't be contradicted.<<
-- 
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
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