Posted on 08/04/2005 4:21:58 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - Two former employees of a pro-Israel lobbying organization were charged Thursday with conspiring to obtain and disclose classified U.S. defense information for five years.
A five-count indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., named Steven Rosen, formerly the director of foreign policy issues for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and Keith Weissman, the organization's former senior Iran analyst.
The charges follow the indictment in June of Pentagon analyst Lawrence A. Franklin, who is accused of leaking classified military information to an Israeli official and the AIPAC employees.
The lengthy FBI investigation that led to Thursday's charges has been closely followed in Washington, where AIPAC is an influential interest group. The case also has served as a reminder of a tense time in U.S.-Israeli relations: the 1985 spy scandal in which civilian Navy analyst Jonathan Pollard was caught spying for Israel.
The government is not accusing Franklin, Rosen and Weissman of espionage, although the FBI has questioned at least one Israeli official and also wants to talk to Naor Gilon, who recently returned to Israel after a stint as a senior diplomat in the Israeli embassy in Washington.
Israeli Embassy spokesman David Siegel said his country's diplomats have done nothing wrong. "We've seen no information to suggest anything to the contrary," Siegel said.
He acknowledged that U.S. officials have asked about questioning Gilon. "We've expressed our willingness to cooperate," he said.
Rosen, a top AIPAC lobbyist for 23 years, and Weissman disclosed sensitive information as far back as 1999 on a variety of topics, including al-Qaida, terrorist activities in Central Asia, the bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia and U.S. policy in Iran, the indictment said. Among their contacts were U.S. and foreign government officials and reporters, the indictment said.
One unanswered question is how the men might have obtained classified material before they met Franklin, who specialized in Iranian and Middle Eastern affairs, in 2003. While the indictment suggests that at least two other U.S. government officials also were sources of classified information, no other charges are planned at this time, U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty said at a news conference in Alexandria.
McNulty said the men apparently were motivated by a desire to advance their personal agendas and careers by trading on prized information. "The facts alleged today tell a story of individuals who put their own interests and their own views of foreign policy ahead of American national security," McNulty said.
Rosen, 63, of Silver Spring, Md.; Weissman, 53, of Bethesda, Md.; and Franklin, 58, of Kearneysville, W.Va., are scheduled to be arraigned Aug. 16 in Alexandria.
"The charges in the indictment announced today are entirely unjustified," said Abbe Lowell, Rosen's attorney. John Nassikas, Weissman's lawyer, said, "We are disappointed that the government has decided to pursue these charges, which Mr. Weissman strongly denies."
Franklin previously pleaded innocent, but Thursday's indictment dropped one charge against him and he will be re-arraigned on the others. Prosecutors did not explain why they dropped the charge of communicating classified information to someone not authorized to receive it.
Plato Cacheris, Franklin's lawyer, said he had been expecting additional charges. He said Franklin cooperated with investigators for three months in 2004.
The investigation has been under way since at least 2001 and has included use of sophisticated electronic surveillance techniques, law enforcement officials have said. The indictment suggests that investigators were listening in on Rosen as far back as 1999, because the indictment includes a purported snippet of a conversation he had with an unidentified foreign official.
For the past two years, the FBI has focused on whether Franklin passed classified U.S. material on Iran and other matters to AIPAC, and whether that group in turn passed it on to Israel. Both AIPAC and Israel deny any wrongdoing. AIPAC fired Rosen and Weissman in April. "The organization does not seek, use or request anything but legally obtained appropriate information as part of its work," AIPAC spokesman Patrick Dorton said.
Israel has said it imposed a ban on espionage in the United States after the Pollard scandal. He was sentenced to life in prison. That case damaged U.S.-Israeli relations and remains a sore point between the countries.
___
Associated Press reporter Matthew Barakat in Alexandria, Va., contributed to this report.
FBI: http://www.fbi.gov
American Israel Public Affairs Committee: http://www.aipac.org/
A copy of this indictment should be mailed to Judith Miller...
Did either mention Plame?
When they try and recruit new spies (and they have lots of them), they say, "and, if you get caught, you may spend a little time in jail until we can get you out..." But, Pollard sticks in their throats because he is still in jail and will die there!
"Did either mention Plame?"
And look what Joe Wilson leaked.
Did Sandy Berger let them in?
He should be dead already.
I am sick and tired of the Israeli's spying on one hand and having their hand out for foreign aid on the other. They received more foreign aid in 2004 then any other country except Iraq (Israel 2.62 billion) but yet they spy and sell our weapons systems to countries like China. What am I missing here?
1) NO foreign aide.
2) NO foreign aide.
3) NO foreign aide.
4) Life imprisonment for spies.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For further information contact Alexandria, Virginia Sam Dibbley 703-842-4050 August 4, 2005
Paul McNulty, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, announced that Lawrence Anthony Franklin, age 58, of Kearneysville, WV; Steven J. Rosen, age 63, of Silver Spring, MD; and Keith Weissman, age 53, of Bethesda, MD, were indicted today by a federal grand jury sitting in Alexandria with Conspiracy to Communicate National Defense Information to Persons Not Entitled to Receive It.
The indictment alleges that beginning in April of 1999, Rosen, the Director of Foreign Policy Issues for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington, D.C., and Weissman, the Senior Middle East Analyst in the Foreign Policy Issues Department at AIPAC, in an effort to influence persons within and outside the United States government, would use their contacts within the United States government, including Franklin, with whom they first met in February 2003, to gather sensitive United States government information, including classified information relating to the national defense, for subsequent unlawful communication, delivery and transmission to persons not entitled to receive it, including members of the media and foreign government officials. [end snip]
Business as usual, and until we fixed Iraq, the only democracy in the Middle East.
That Israel is the tip of the spear of Western values in the Middle East. And if we weren’t paying them to stand up to Islamic fascists, we’d have to be there to a greater degree. And if no-one was there, they’d be here.
If that was our policy 50 years ago, we’d have been encircled by communism until we were eaten from within.
"Did Sandy Berger let them in?"
They mentioned Al Quaida and terrortist activities in the article. I know it's a big stretch - - wouldn't it be a hoot if the papers that Handy Sandy stuffed in his pants (as I recall it was right before the 911 Comm Hearings) and got rid of are ones that the FBI has copies of in these files.
Maybe Bubba & Co (including Hitlery) were trying to cover what they knew and when they knew it and did nothing to protect us. OK, I said it was a stretch - - just wishful thinking of a way to keep Hill & Bill out of the WH
But we are more afraid of the "anti-semite" label than of any other words on earth. That prevents us from doing what is right and even upright for ourselves.
Did Sandy Berger let them in?
---
It does beg the question 'how many israeli spies did Sandy smuggle in and out of the white house in his socks?'..
CandidCamera .. meet Keystone Cops .. With Bubba playing WC Fields. ;-)
3 Indicted for Classified Leak thread!
That would be the pro-Israel lobby in case it goes over any heads. Shades of Pollard and these would-be Israeli spies in New Zealand?
Policies that made sense 50 yrs ago don't necessarily continue to do so. Making newborns citizens automatically may be one thing we should reconsider in light of the "anchor baby" behavior perpetrated by illegals.
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