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.
Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/042009A
1 opmerking:
Deze zaak loopt blijkbaar al jaren. Washington Post 25 oktober 2006:
Sources said the Harman inquiry was an outgrowth of the ongoing criminal prosecution of two former AIPAC lobbyists who are charged with violating the Espionage Act in connection with receiving national defense information and transmitting it to journalists and employees of the Israeli Embassy who were not entitled to receive it. Lawrence Franklin, a former Pentagon analyst who pleaded guilty to passing government secrets to the two lobbyists, was sentenced this year to more than 12 years in prison.
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