A canard? A canard, you say! Harrumph!
Posted on 04/20/2009 6:57:25 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Report: Jane Harman recorded vowing take action for AIPAC on wiretap @ 9:33 am by Jeremy P. Jacobs
Congresswoman Jane Harman was recorded on a NSA wiretapped conversation agreeing to work to downgrade espionage charges against two officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in return for help securing the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee, according to Jeff Stein's anonymously sourced column in Congressional Quarterly.
Harman, a California Democrat, was allegedly recorded in a conversation with a suspected Israeli agent. The conversation reportedly took place before the 2006 election, when Democrats seized control of the chamber and, therefore, the committee chairmanships.
It was widely reported at the time that Harman wanted to chair the Intelligence Committee but was passed over by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for Rep. Silvestre Reyes, a Texas Democrat. An FBI investigation was launched at the time into pro-Israel lobbyists seeking to influence Pelosi to give Harman the chairmanship.
The story alleges that then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales compelled the FBI to end the investigation in return for Harman defending the administration's wiretapping program.
Harman wholeheartedly denied wrong doing in a statement to the publication. "These claims are an outrageous and recycled canard, and have no basis in fact," she said. "I never engaged in any such activity. Those who are peddling these false accusations should be ashamed of themselves."
It is unclear from the story whether Harman knew she was talking to a "suspected Israeli agent."
In addition to these developments, the story touches upon the implied power of the Israel lobby, which, if this is all true, Harman believed could effectively lobby Pelosi for the chairmanship.
It does not appear that Harman was the member of Congress that the New York Times reported last week that the NSA attempted to wiretap.
Two more points of interest: That the NSA was listening to a member of Congress on its wiretaps is, by itself, newsworthy enough. But now, the fact that they are leaking the transcripts is mind boggling.
What in the sam hill is going on here?
As if anyone on here will be surprised by anything that happens in Washington ever again.............
I thought that NSA was not supposed to tap phone calls sent and received by citizens in the USA? Thus, was the tap of an international call? If Harmon made the call or received a call from someone in the USA isn’t the FBI responsible for the wiretap? What am I missing here?
A ‘RAT... nothing to see here, move along, folks.
Sounds like an admission to me.
The story fails to mention she is Jewish.
All partisan ship aside, it makes me ill to think of stories being released detailing (NSA???() taped conversations of our Congress people
Who authorized this ????????
Unless they are talking to overseas terrorists!!!!
Isn’t that what the patriot act was supposed to be confined to???? What the Sam Hill is going on in this country?
Maybe this will wake up some of the so-called liberal intelligentsia who never realized what a hard left radical regime is capable of
A canard? A canard, you say! Harrumph!
Culture of corruption...
The NSA unambiguously can and does listen in on calls originating outside the United States, without the need of a warrant.
Every country in the world, including Sweden, Switerland and Canada monitor international communications in and out of their countries. It’s only in the United States that anyone makes a fuss about it.
Indeed, that is THE major item of interest in this story. It's interesting to speculate about who and why.
If I had to guess, I'd say this was meant to damage Jane Harman directly. Why, and for whom? Is it a question of Obama's team wanting somebody more to their liking in that post? Is there friction between Harman and Nancy Pelosi?
I have to think that the timing is not accidental. My guess is that there's an Obama connection here. It's probably tied to Obama's extremely unwise decision to release the "CIA torture memos," perhaps it's their strategy to clean out those who opposed this (and other) actions.
Harman is hopelessly liberal, but she's actually not all that unreasonable as the Intel chair -- I can see her getting crossways with The 0ne.
I don't believe that is a black-and-white issue. If a foreigner living in the US is a known contact of terrorists or anti-Americans overseas, their phone calls can/should also be tapped. And if a sitting congressman is in contact with said foreigner...oops.
The story alleges that then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales compelled the FBI to end the investigation in return for Harman defending the administration's wiretapping program.
Harmon is just being thrown under the bus for pissing off Pelosi.
She was (supposedly) talking to an Israeli agent who was outside the United States. Whether or not he was a terrorist, he was trying to get more lenient treatment for a convicted Israeli agent. It does say which agent, but Jonathan Pollard sold the Israelis very sensitive information about U.S. strategic nuclear defenses, which the Israelis traded to the Soviets for the release of Soviet Jews to immigrate to Israel. I am about as pro-Israeli as any gentile, but I find this to be a despicable betrayal by an ally we have stood by when the easy thing to do would have been to embrace her enemies who sit on most of the world's petroleum reserves.
the story does not say she was talking to an overseas caller
If all the Congress calls are being mined by a federal agency, then there would be ample blackmail material to keep everyone in line - who would be the recipient of this program data and who would have ability to control it...or use it... Maybe not even the supposed “executive office”
This reads like it happened under Bush
WTF
Presumably the agent was in Israel, or if in the US was established as regularly being involved in intelligence work for Israel.
What we are seeing is a civil war within the Democrat party, between the pro-Israel faction and the pro-Islamic faction, with Obama being on the anti-Israel side. The pro-Islamic side's plan is to throw Israel to the wolves over Iran, and they don't want any pro-Israel Democrats to side with the Republicans to protect Israel.
That said, I don't like AIPAC being involved in espionage against the US on US soil, and trying to buy protection from Congress.
Apparently she is pro Israel, which is better that being
pro the other side.
Did you miss the part where her conversation was with a suspected Israeli agent?
Very interesting. Thanks for posting.
Harmon, guilty or not has been played.
To my knowlege, the NSA does not monitor domestic communications, the FBI does and they need a warrant. In most countries the security officials don’t even need a warrant to monitor domestic communications.
I suspect that the surveillance target was the Israeli agent, not the Congress member. When a Congress member directly contacts the agent of a foreign government, especially one who has been identified as a “risk”, I don’t particularly care if intelligence agencies listen in.
hmmmmm interesting....
The problem is complicated by modern technology.
If you use a VoIP phone, you could possibly make calls using a US issued phone number from anywhere in the world via the internet, and that call would be routed by communications equipment within the USA if the calling subscriber used a US based VoIP service.
Therefore a terrorist in Pakistan can talk to another one in Afghanistan and both numbers could, for example, have a Washington DC area code.
So what would appear to be a domestic call between two American endpoints could, in fact be between two terrorists any place in the world.
Yep! They is really cleanin up that swamp, ain’t they? Hahahahaha!
No, I caught that.
I just didnt think that under the Patriot Act (at least in 2006) Israel was considered a terrorist or terrorist-sponsoring where calls to and by US citizens were to be taped. I also didnt see the part where this was an overseas call- ?
Frankly any diplomatic contingent in the US is an agent, open or undercover, for that govt. Did NSA also record conversations Congress had with Irish lobbyists?
Say WHAT?!
Would that then make it OK?
Isn’t it interesting! I can’t wuite make out what they are up to here. Simple Pelosi (who hates Harmon) revenge? An attempt to eliminate anyone who is pro-Israel?
There aren’t enough facts in the story to get a clear picture. Like the date of the call, or the location of the alleged Israeli agent at the time, or why it was an NSA grab and not an FBI wiretap. Too much left unsaid.
In some people's minds, yes. The underlying issue is the left's increasingly irrational view of Israel.
In Harman's case, just being Jewish is grounds for suspicion that she's a supporter of Israel; and of course, she is. But in this particular instance, she's not just a "supporter," but apparently an actual partisan for Israel.
It's enough to unhinge a certain segment of the Democrat party. And, unfortunately, that segment of the party is currently in the driver's seat.
Fascinating. Harmon, while a lib, is occasionally quite reasonable.
So much available for speculation- but we do know that Pelosi can’t stand Harmon. Whether the leak here is a result of that is hard to know- but one thing’s clear- there’s WAY too much classified info finding its way into the public.
I know that doing something like this ahead of time is mostly trying to get a jump on the competition. But, at the same time, how could the Dems know before the elections that they would have control of the House? I don't remember what the poll numbers were for each party going into that election, but it seems a bit fishy to me that anyone from that party would be acting as if it were a sure thing when they were the minority party in the House.
Just what did President Bush do with this information? Don’t believe he blackmailed Jane as you suggest may have happened.
Interesting.
Still, how do we KNOW that
1) such a conversation took place
2) that it was monitored by NSA???
But I think the real point is to replace Harman with an 0bama stooge as the Chair of the Intel committee.
Not a bad move, politically: they can use the noise about Harman to mask the fact that they're getting ready to implement a sea-change in US foreign policy.
It was abundantly clear that they were going to make big gains in '06. There was a good possibility that they would gain control of both houses.
In such cases, prudent politicians would be working to position themselves for a positive (from their perspective) election outcome.
A couple points. One being that the NSA is an information provider that can (and does) provide call recordings to the FBI on request of the FBI. Oftentimes the calls have been obtained and stored on a bulk/indiscriminate basis. This is held, under law, to not constitute a "search" or "seizure."
The other point being that Harman may have been recorded on account of the FBI having suspicion of AILPC. Given suspicion and a warrant, the government is in full satisfaction of the Constitution.
If it wasn't clear from the above, the NSA routinely provides information in response to court-approved search warrants.
Is it not obvious this is another shot over the bow of American Jews. Our Jewish friends need to wake up because it is about to happen all over again.
Congresswoman Jane Harman was recorded on a NSA wiretapped conversation agreeing to work to downgrade espionage charges against two officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in return for help securing the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee, according to Jeff Stein's anonymously sourced column in Congressional Quarterly... allegedly recorded in a conversation with a suspected Israeli agent. The conversation reportedly took place before the 2006 election, when Democrats seized control of the chamber and, therefore, the committee chairmanships.This took place before the 2006 election and is only being made public now, by the Obama administration. What a huge surprise.
It was widely reported at the time that Harman wanted to chair the Intelligence Committee but was passed over by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for Rep. Silvestre Reyes, a Texas Democrat. An FBI investigation was launched at the time into pro-Israel lobbyists seeking to influence Pelosi to give Harman the chairmanship.Funny, I don't remember reading anything about this supposed investigation in news stories during the runup to the 2008 campaign, or during the campaign itself.
The story alleges that then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales compelled the FBI to end the investigation in return for Harman defending the administration's wiretapping program.Oh, see -- it's all Bush's fault.
Harman wholeheartedly denied wrong doing in a statement to the publication. "These claims are an outrageous and recycled canard, and have no basis in fact," she said. "I never engaged in any such activity. Those who are peddling these false accusations should be ashamed of themselves." It is unclear from the story whether Harman knew she was talking to a "suspected Israeli agent." In addition to these developments, the story touches upon the implied power of the Israel lobby, which, if this is all true, Harman believed could effectively lobby Pelosi for the chairmanship.Since this story reeks of the paranoid conspiracy mania that has gripped Moslems time out of mind, I wonder where this story was concocted?
Two more points of interest: That the NSA was listening to a member of Congress on its wiretaps is, by itself, newsworthy enough. But now, the fact that they are leaking the transcripts is mind boggling.
Neither is true. The NSA and FBI have cooperating roles, not mutually exclusive roles. See the Jabarra set of cases. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1550960/posts?page=221#221 (scroll up and down in that thread)
But she's not the Chair. That is Sylvestre Reyes. Pelosi saw to it that Harman didn't get it, even though she was the likely choice.
Count on it, if the lobbyist is a foreign diplomat. That conversation is categorically of interest as possibly containing "foreign intelligence information," and is thereby subject to being obtained without reference to a court approval.
Argh... you're right. Just goes to show how much attention I've been paying over the past couple of years. Mea culpa.
Still, I think the idea of replacing Harman with an 0bamanite is probably the driving factor here.
Yup, it's pretty clear that there is an attempt to do her damage.
There was a legal fuss in the UK, heard in some EU "Court of Human Rights." Ahh, found it. See http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2098347/posts?page=17#17
I wondered for a minute why the Obama administration was leaking bad information about a Democrat. But then I realised -- it's not surprising at all. Harmon was a fairly decent democrat when it came to national security. Obama is helping out Pelosi, while at the same time smearing the Bush administration some more by suggesting the administration illegally tapped a congresswoman and then used the tapes to blackmail her into supporing the administration program.
If that story were true, it would be a big deal -- I assume it is not the truth. Maybe Obama is sending the message that, under his NSA, democratic congresspeople better toe the line or he'll leak damaging information about them. In other words, it's the classic "blame others for what you intend to do".
Thanks for this and the previous post.
Sources: Wiretap Recorded Rep. Harman Promising to Intervene for AIPAC
It contains enough detail of the conversation to make it very credible (she says "waddle in" to the situation, for example).
The story, if true, would make giving the committee chair to somebody other than Harman a good thing, in that she is suspected of mixed loyalties and that it would be imprudent to knowingly seat such a person as chair of the House Intelligence Committee.
The story, if true, also damages the Bush administration, and AG Gonzales in particular, for playing politics with a criminal investigation.
I personally think this is Washington as usual, with the only modest surprise being the publicity. Washington, DC is a snake pit.
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