Posted on 12/04/2004 5:53:55 PM PST by SmithL
WASHINGTON -- AIPAC, the powerhouse pro-Israel lobby currently embroiled in allegations of spying for Israel, was set up by the FBI, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
FBI agents used a courier, Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin, to draw two senior AIPAC officials who already knew him into accepting what he described to them as "classified" information, reliable government and other sources intimately familiar with the investigation have told the Post.
One of the AIPAC pair then told diplomats at the Israeli Embassy in Washington about the "classified" information, which claimed Iranians were monitoring and planning to kidnap and kill Israelis operating in the Kurdish areas in northern Iraq, the Post has been told.
It is unclear whether the "classified" information was real or bogus.
AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) denies any wrongdoing.
Knowingly transferring classified information to a foreign power can be a breach of US espionage statutes. Legal experts have told the Post that passing on bogus classified information may be used to demonstrate intent to violate the law but does not itself constitute a crime.
Franklin, an Iran expert, was already under investigation by the FBI for allegedly passing classified information to AIPAC when, the Post's sources say, FBI counterintelligence agents approached him to play a central role in the setup operation this past summer.
The FBI had been monitoring AIPAC's activities for some two years when, last year, its agents observed two AIPAC officials, Steve Rosen, director of foreign policy issues, and Keith Weissman, a senior Middle East analyst with the lobby, at a lunch meeting with Franklin in Washington.
At this lunch, it has been widely reported, Franklin allegedly briefed the AIPAC pair on the content of a draft national security presidential directive on Iran.
Details of the draft, which included proposed measures the US could employ to destabilize the Iranian regime, were already circulating at the time. According to some reports, an Israeli diplomat at the embassy in Washington, Naor Gilon, was also present at the lunch.
Earlier this year, the FBI informed Franklin that, as a consequence of the lunch meeting, he was under investigation. The Pentagon analyst, hoping for leniency, agreed to cooperate with FBI agents in what would become the setting up of AIPAC, a process designed to bust the lobby for passing secrets to Israel.
The FBI agents told Franklin to request a meeting with Rosen and Weissman. He initiated contact with the AIPAC pair, and told them that he needed to discuss a ticking-bomb situation.
Franklin was then dispatched to meet the two AIPAC officials and outline the alleged threat to Israelis in northern Iraq, the Post has been told.
Saying his access to the White House was limited, Franklin also expressed concern that the Bush administration was underestimating the extent to which Iranian agents were operating in Iraq and asked the AIPAC officials to stress this point in their meetings with US officials.
The agents' hope, plainly, was that the AIPAC pair would be so troubled by the apparent life-and-death content of the information from Franklin as to risk a breach of US espionage statutes and transfer what they believed to be classified material to a foreign power, Israel.
And that, the Post has been told, is precisely what happened.
Franklin, according to news reports, cooperated with the FBI until about two months ago. In early October, he abruptly stopped working with authorities, dropped his court-appointed attorney and sought the legal counsel of Plato Cacheris, a prominent Washington defense lawyer who has represented numerous accused spies.
"Obviously his was a bad deal," says one source familiar with Franklin's decision to stop cooperating with the bureau.
News of the initial Franklin-AIPAC lunch broke last summer: CBS led its August 27 Nightly News broadcast with a report of a "full-fledged espionage investigation under way," saying the FBI was about to "roll up" a suspected Israeli "mole" in the office of the secretary of defense in the Pentagon.
CBS reported that, using wiretaps, undercover surveillance and photography, the FBI had documented the passing of a classified presidential directive on Iran from the suspected mole to two people who work at AIPAC. Sources familiar with the matter, however, said no documents exchanged hands.
CBS's sensational allegation immediately conjured up memories of the Pollard affair, the 1985 arrest and subsequent conviction in 1987 and life imprisonment for espionage of US naval intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard for passing classified information to Israel.
The investigation into Franklin and the AIPAC officials continued quietly, with little subsequent media coverage, in recent months. No indictments were issued and most reports scaled back the accusations against Franklin from alleged espionage to mishandling of classified evidence.
But the investigation burst back into prominence last Wednesday, when FBI agents made their first visit to AIPAC's Capitol Hill offices since August. Armed with a warrant, the agents seized computer files related to Rosen and Weissman and issued subpoenas to four senior officials at the lobby, requesting that they appear before a grand jury later this month in the Eastern District of Virginia.
Agents had copied Rosen's computer hard drive during their previous visit.
The four subpoenaed officials, who are considered witnesses, not targets, of the investigation, are AIPAC Executive Director Howard Kohr, Managing Director Richard Fishman, Communications Director Renee Rothstein and Research Director Rafi Danziger.
A Washington criminal justice expert said Friday that the issuing of the subpoenas suggested the FBI was "getting ready to indict."
AIPAC has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
"AIPAC has done nothing wrong. Neither AIPAC nor any member of our staff has broken any law, nor has AIPAC or its employees ever received information they believed was secret or classified. We continue to cooperate fully with the governmental authorities and believe any court of law or grand jury will conclude that AIPAC employees have always acted legally, properly and appropriately," AIPAC said in a statement.
"Despite the false and baseless allegations that have been reported, AIPAC will not be distracted from our central mission of supporting America's interests in the Middle East and advocating for a strong relationship with Israel," the statement said.
If this is true, it's totally nuts. Everyone knows that the CIA needs to be cleaned out, but so does the FBI. The people responsible for Ruby Ridge, Waco, Oklahoma City, and the failure to investigate al Qaeda are all still in place, being promoted and rewarded by Sessions.
Sessions must go. Clinton set the precedent when he fired the director of the FBI right before Vincent Foster was killed. Bush has a more legitimate excuse. Sessions was a lousy appointment. Bush needs to find someone competent to take his place and clean house.
I wonder if this is an attempt to discredit the Sec. of Defence at the same time.
Let me get this right, our FBI entrapped these men by threatening the death of a colleague? Nobility and loyalty illegal?
This is perverse and evil.
Whoever set these men up should be shot.
This blows. How are "lobbyists" supposed to know what really is or isn't "classified" and how "classified" could they think it really is if some guy who isn't that inside gives them the info? And how would it be undermining the U.S. to tell someone at the Israeli embassy that Israelis in Kurdish areas may be targetted?
One of the AIPAC pair then told diplomats at the Israeli Embassy in Washington about the "classified" information, which claimed Iranians were monitoring and planning to kidnap and kill Israelis operating in the Kurdish areas in northern Iraq.
It is unclear whether the "classified" information was real or bogus.
Saving a human life however is not "bogus".
[PSSSSST, Over here pal! I heard that XXXX has plans and are ready to kidnap and kill your family. Here's the info, but don't try to stop them.]
When the almost the rest of the UN is against you and everything you stand for what is the point of setting up one of the few friendly nations?
If I knew of confidential information that may be used to save the lives of allies of the United States(in this case Israel), I'd pass it along also.
Also,
"A Washington criminal justice expert said Friday that the issuing of the subpoenas suggested the FBI was "getting ready to indict."
Since when does the FBI have the same power as the Department of Justice? I am under the assumption that the FBI is purely an Federal investigative police agency and don't have the power to 'indict' anyone.
Who is Sessions?
And criminal. Treason.
Treason is what the FBI did. It was an act of ciminal treason. Providing aid and comfort to our enemies in Iran and Iraq.
It was criminal treason on the part of the FBI. You do NOT endanger the lifes of allies on the ground with you in enemy territory without it being a form of Treason.
IIRC when Hoover set up the FBI he had the idea that it should be swept clean every 10 years.
fyi
Read the entire article, sentence by sentence. Then look for the actual "facts".
Not true - they did not have a warrant. They were surveilling.
FBI sniper, called in much later was given order to shoot at an armed suspect out side cabin who was shooting at police helicopter.
Not true-- no shots were fired at helicopter.
Hit his intended target, but bullet passed through him and killed suspects wife.
Not true -- bullet passed through Vickie Weaver first, then wounded Weaver's friend.
Source --- Idaho vs. Houriuchi
Israel is biggest spy on US. Ever hear of Julius and Ethel ROSENBERG? Of course Jerusalem Post calls it a set up.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were spying for the Soviet Union.
The FBI is bad news for Jews.
The FBI is bad news for Americans.
The FBI is bad news.
Ping.
Congratulations!
Pollard and the Liberty not only in one post, but one sentence!!
A+Bert sends his best!
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