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(New York Times) – The decision to drop the case comes just days before Aipac is scheduled to begin its annual policy conference in Washington, which has often served as an advertisement of its influence. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is scheduled to address the event via satellite.
Lawyers for Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman said in a statement that while they were pleased at the decision, the government had erred in bringing the case in the first place and had caused great damage to their clients. Aipac dismissed the men early in 2004 after prosecutors presented some of their evidence to an Aipac lawyer. The group later agreed to subsidize their legal costs.
The move by the government to end the case came in a motion filed with the Federal Court in Alexandria.
The investigation of Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman also surfaced recently in news reports that Representative Jane Harman, a California Democrat long involved in intelligence matters, was overheard on a government wiretap discussing the case. As reported by Congressional Quarterly, which covers Capitol Hill, and The New York Times, Ms. Harman was overheard agreeing with an Israeli intelligence operative to try to intercede with Bush administration officials to obtain leniency for Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman in exchange for help in persuading Democratic leaders to make her chairwoman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Ms. Harman is to be among the featured speakers at the Aipac conference next week.
…
Over government objections, Judge Ellis had also ruled that the defense could call as witnesses several senior Bush administration foreign policy officials to demonstrate that what occurred was part of the continuing process of information trading and did not involve anything nefarious. The defense lawyers were planning to call as witnesses former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Stephen J. Hadley, the former national security adviser; and several others. Government policy makers indicated they were clearly uncomfortable with senior officials’ testifying in open court over policy deliberations.
The government’s motion to dismiss said the government was obliged take a final review of the case to consider “the likelihood that classified information will be revealed at trial, any damage to the national security that might result from a disclosure of classified information and the likelihood the government would prevail at trial.”
per your haaretz link and this AP story, since then, about 2 weeks ago, it was a foregone conclusion. the minute harman was tagged as being involved it was over. not the least because of her position as chair of the homeland security intelligence subcommittee. couldn’t have her testifying under oath…it’d look real bad if she had to take the 5th, eh.
it just took them [doj] a while to figure out a reasonable explanation…the old buggaboo state secrets always works. it doesn’t come close to passing the smell test…can you say miasma?…l knew you could.
The United States has really got to stop kissing Israel’s ass-it’s not our best look!
Here’s Gary Leupp’s take on this, which I find plausible:
Most likely, the Harman leak was made once it became clear that the case was going to be dropped:
The case was a typical instance of Bush administration executive overreach. It’s funny how people who can’t stand AIPAC and would otherwise be scandalized by such a bullshit espionage case suddenly assume that the Bush administration was acting legally and morally because they prosecuted AIPAC employees.
Feh, it’s more a matter of taking what you can get. Organizations like AIPAC, lobbying on behalf of a foreign government and wielding tremendous influence, should not exist in the first place. There is a proper way for foreign governments to interface with our government: they’re called diplomats, and they typically work out of embassies. They should in no case be involved in influencing domestic elections.
Well I don’t see how you are going to outlaw them. But as far as I understand, these people were being prosecuted for passing around information that government officials told them in meetings where everyone involved knew that they were lobbyists, where no warnings were issued, and there was not even an allegation of improper activity to get the information. What the Bush administration was claiming was that if you met with a government official, perhaps to tell them that the US should not support Israel, and you later communicated contents of that meeting to someone else, you would be open for prosecution – even if you had not been warned that the meeting covered classified material.
Speaking of marching orders:
Israel’s Peres coaches AIPAC on Obama’s Iran policy
http://www.payvand.com/news/09/may/1054.html