FBI setup in AIPAC case confirmed

WASHINGTON -- Members of Congress have expressed anger and dismay over Sunday's report in The Jerusalem Post describing how the FBI set up the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.

Plato Cacheris, the lawyer for Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin, who was used by the FBI to plant "classified" information with trusting AIPAC officials, has confirmed the accuracy of the Post's report. Cacheris added that Franklin broke off contact with the FBI because he was "disappointed in their response to his assistance."

Meanwhile, Israel's ambassador to the US, Daniel Ayalon, has declined to comment on the Post's account of an AIPAC official giving the information planted by Franklin – which related to possible Iranian threats to the lives of Israelis operating in Iraq – to an embassy diplomat. And an Israeli Embassy spokesman told the Post that the embassy has not been approached by the FBI over the case.

The Post's exclusive report on Sunday presented the inside story of the spying-for-Israel allegations swirling around AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee).

AIPAC has consistently denied any wrongdoing, and the Post's publication of details of the case has strengthened a demand from members of Congress for a briefing from the Justice Department on the investigation. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-New York), one of those seeking the briefing, told the Post they have received no response to date.

"I think it's very disconcerting to think that an investigating agency of the United States, while investigating the alleged misdeeds of a [Pentagon] employee [Franklin], would look to cut some kind of deal with him if they believe he committed a crime and to give him a better deal if they could get some Jews instead," said Ackerman.

"They are trying at any length to disrupt the work of a very successful prestigious American organization that advocates American foreign policy in the Middle East for a better relationship with Israel," Ackerman added.

Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Florida), who has pressed the Bush administration unsuccessfully for a briefing on the investigation, said that "The tactics of the Bush administration relative to AIPAC, if they are accurate, are very troublesome. In essence the tactic used was to present the AIPAC employees with a moral dilemma: that is, whether or not, in order to save innocent lives, they would pass on information to Israeli officials."

"The AIPAC people we're talking about are otherwise totally innocent people," Wexler added. "And the idea that the American administration, when America faces dangerous enemies all around the world, would be focused on trying to entrap otherwise innocent people is infuriating to me."

"This is nothing less than presidential involvement and direction, because Condoleezza Rice was advised of this investigation more than two years ago. Why has President Bush singled out the American Jewish community for this kind of unsettling investigation?"

"The president has set in motion a series of events that bring to light the worst kind of historical anti-Semitism and actions against the Jewish people. And that's why I personally am so sensitive and disgusted about this administration and its tactics in this regard, because this will bring to light an ugly debate with ugly accusations regarding the dual loyalty of certain members of the American Jewish community. I don't think the American Jewish community should be complacent."

While it has questioned officials at AIPAC and the Pentagon, the FBI has not tried to interview anyone at the Israeli Embassy over the case. An embassy spokesman, David Segal, said the embassy has "never been approached by the FBI."

The embassy has been a silent player in the unfolding drama. An embassy diplomat, Naor Gilon, was reportedly present at a lunch last year when Franklin briefed two AIPAC officials – Steve Rosen, director of foreign policy issues, and Keith Weissman, a senior Middle East analyst at the lobby – on a secret draft national security presidential directive on Iran.

Franklin and Gilon were spotted during a surveillance operation of AIPAC officials the FBI had been carrying out for some two years.

As The Jerusalem Post reported Sunday, the embassy then became embroiled in a subsequent FBI setup, designed to try to catch AIPAC officials passing "classified" information to Israel.

After being contacted by FBI agents earlier this year, and told he was under investigation because of that lunch with Rosen and Weissman, Franklin agreed to cooperate with authorities in an attempt to receive a lighter penalty.

FBI agents this past July planted information with Franklin that Iranians were monitoring and planning to kidnap and kill Israelis operating in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq. Franklin, wearing a listening device, conveyed the information to the same two AIPAC officials, telling them it was classified.

Rosen, troubled by the life-or-death nature of the information, immediately passed the information on to a diplomat at the Israeli Embassy, the Post has been told.

AIPAC, however, says that neither the lobby nor "its employees ever received information they believed was secret or classified."

Four senior AIPAC officials are due to appear before a grand jury later this month, a signal, some legal experts say, that the Justice Department could be preparing indictments of Franklin and/or the two AIPAC officials.

One legal question is whether Franklin's telling the AIPAC pair that the information was "classified" – without showing any top-secret documents – and the subsequent passing on of this information to Israel, could be considered in any way criminal or demonstrate intent to commit a crime.

News reports have pointed out that Franklin often relied on sources considered unreliable by the CIA and the broader US intelligence community.

The alleged threat to Israelis in Iraq had not appeared in the press at the time. But the claim that Israelis and Iranians were operating in Iraq did feature widely in newspaper and magazine articles, throwing further possible doubt on the "classified" nature of the material.

A few weeks before the information about alleged Iranian threats to Israelis in Iraq was planted with Franklin, The New Yorker published the first report on Israeli agents operating in Iraq. That report, in the magazine's June 2004 issue, was denied by Israel. It is still not clear whether the information supplied by Franklin to the AIPAC officials was real or bogus.

A few months after the setup, Franklin abruptly halted cooperation with the FBI, fired his court-appointed lawyer and hired Cacheris, a prominent Washington defense lawyer who has represented numerous accused spies.

Ayalon, declining to comment on the case, praised AIPAC as "one of the strongest, most effective American organizations dedicated to the strengthening of the US-Israel relationship. As such, the ties between the embassy and AIPAC are very strong and will continue to be so.

"Israel's relationship with the United States has never been stronger as both countries work together to bring peace and security to the Middle East while strengthening bilateral ties," he added.

Wexler said he held US President George W. Bush accountable.

"This is nothing less than presidential involvement and direction, because Condoleezza Rice was advised of this investigation more than two years ago. Why has President Bush singled out the American Jewish community for this kind of unsettling investigation?"

"The president has set in motion a series of events that bring to light the worst kind of historical anti-Semitism and actions against the Jewish people. And that's why I personally am so sensitive and disgusted about this administration and its tactics in this regard, because this will bring to light an ugly debate with ugly accusations regarding the dual loyalty of certain members of the American Jewish community. I don't think the American Jewish community should be complacent."

Ummm Wexler, I DON'T THINK SO!!!! He's the best friend Israel ever had! And you want to know why this Jew left your party? Look in the mirror.

*lol* I thought I was the only Jew on FR who had joined the 18% and left Wexler and the Dims. Israel is the number one spy against the United States because of U.S. Jews misplaced and nationalist loyalty to a Jewish state rather to their own nation sic the United States. Granted Israel is unlikely to harm the US but they will coerce. Spying is spying. Of far more seriousness, and I'm afraid the horse was out of the barn under Clinton, are the hundreds of thousands of Red Chinese who daily infiltrate our universities, government institutes of research and top secret installations and high tech business by invitation. I assure you the Chinese are stealing the fillings from your teeth every single day.

I haven't been following this one, but a friend told me one guy that was involved got in trouble and the mother was to be rewarded with a better job? Please enlighten me.

I haven't been following this one, but a friend told me one guy that was involved got in trouble and the other was to be rewarded with a better job? Please enlighten me.

I haven't been following this one, but a friend told me one guy that
was involved got in trouble and the other was to be rewarded with a
better job? Please enlighten me. <<<<

I wish I knew the answers to your question, but I do not.

When I first heard this story, I did not think it would turn out to be true, but after months it is now only larger and
more confused.

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