| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon May 30, 2005 7:29 pm Post subject: Two senior AIPAC officials to be indicted by Justice Dept. u |
| FW:Ask your media why they are silent on the AIPAC espionage
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/06/01/fw-ask-your-media-why-they-are-silent-on-the-aipac-espionage.php
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Exclusive: Two senior AIPAC officials to be indicted by Justice Dept. under U.S. Espionage Act Last update - 03:33 30/05/2005
Virginia grand jury to submit the indictments
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/581788.html
By Nathan Guttman, Haaretz Correspondent
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Justice Department is expected to file indictments against two former senior American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) staffers - Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman - and, according to sources familiar with the affair, the charges will be subsumed under the Espionage Act.
A Virginia grand jury is now examining the evidence in the case, which involved receipt of classified defense information from Larry Franklin, a Pentagon official, and its transfer to the representative of a foreign country, Naor Gilon, of the Israeli embassy in Washington.
Sources involved in the case confirmed that the Espionage Act is on the agenda. However, there is also the possibility that the Justice Department is raising the intention to use that law with the purpose of reaching a plea bargain concerning a lesser offense, albeit one that is still covered by anti-espionage legislation in the U.S.
Presumably, if indeed such an indictment is filed against two former top-level AIPAC staff members, then Gilon's name will come up, even though he is not a suspect. Israeli officials say he was never questioned in the affair. Gilon heads the political department at the embassy.
According to the sources, the grand jury will submit indictments in the coming weeks against Rosen, the former head of foreign policy for the lobbying organization, and against Weissman, who was responsible for the Iranian brief in AIPAC. The grand jury is expected to hand down its indictment against Franklin this week. He is suspected of handing over the classified information. That indictment is expected to be similar to the criminal complaint already filed by the FBI.
The classified material is said to involve information about Iranian intentions to harm American soldiers in Iraq, and it was supposedly given to the two former AIPAC staffers during lunch in Virginia on June 26, 2003.
But suspicions against Rosen and Weissman focus on a meeting a year later, on July 12, 2004. Franklin was cooperating by then with the FBI, which had threatened him with an indictment after tracking his earlier meetings with the AIPAC men, discovering the alleged hand-over of secret information. He agreed to take part in a sting operation in which he would give the two information and the investigators would then follow them.
Franklin called Weissman and asked for a meeting to discuss an important subject. At the meeting, in a mall near the Pentagon, the Franklin told Weissman that Iranian agents were trying to capture Israeli civilians working in the Kurdish area in northern Iraq. Around the same time there had been conflicting reports in Washington about an Israeli presence in Kurdish Iraq. Journalist Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker had written that Israelis were operating there, but Israel -and the Americans -denied it.
At the meeting, Franklin told Weissman that the information was classified. This is significant in terms of the investigation, since it prevents the AIPAC men from claiming in their defense that they did not know they were dealing with state secrets.
Weissman left the meeting and went straight to Rosen's AIPAC office at Capitol Hill. He said it was a matter of life or death, and that Israeli lives were in immediate danger. The two made three phone calls: to an administration official, to Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post, and to Gilon, at the embassy. Rosen told Gilon about the information and the Israeli official promised he would look into it. All those calls were wiretapped by the FBU and are part of the case against Rosen and Weissman.
Plato Cacheris, Franklin's lawyer, confirmed to The New York Sun this weekend that his client indeed took part in the sting operation and said that the investigators appealed to Franklin's sense of patriotism to win him over.
The fact that Rosen and Weissman, as American citizens, handed information to an official representative of a foreign power while knowing it was classified is incriminating under the 1917 Espionage Act, which defines as a crime receipt of classified information for the purpose of helping any foreign entity.
The estimated 500 cases involving prosecution of this crime over the last 90 years have always focused on the accused party initiating receipt of the information and on the damage done to the U.S. as a result. In this case, Franklin initiated the transferal of information - and there is no clear-cut evidence regarding the damage done to the U.S.
Rosen, who was under FBI surveillance for at least four years, is now planning his defense with the help of high-profile attorney Abby Lowell. He does not want a plea bargain and prefers to fight it out in court, so he can prove his innocence and go back to work for the lobby.
A decisive factor regarding the future of the case will be the extent of the cooperation between Franklin and the investigators. If Franklin depicts his relationship with Weissman and Rosen as close, and one in which he was asked to provide information, it will help the prosecution. Rosen and Weissman claim that the connection with him was minimal and mostly involved trading professional assessments. (Franklin met with Rosen three times, and more often with Weissman.)
But Franklin is not believed right now to be cooperating fully and he faces two charges: one for handing over the information in 2003, and the other for the illegal possession of 83 classified documents at his home in West Virginia. The maximum punishment for each of the charges is 10 years in prison. If he cooperates with the investigation, the punishment could be significantly reduced.
AIPAC will presumably be discussed in the actual trials. But right now, at least, it does not appear the organization itself will be charged. AIPAC leaders have taken a series of steps to cut themselves off from the two former officials suspected in the case. Sources close to the case say the prosecution posed four conditions to AIPAC, which would guarantee that it would not be involved in the indictments: a change of working methods to ensure that such incidents don't happen again; the firing of the two officials and public disassociation from them; no offers of high severance or anything else to make it appear the two quit of their own volition; and no financing of their defenses.
AIPAC has abided by the first three conditions - and the severance pay offered the two was considered very low, considering the many years they worked for the lobby. But it is said to be helping with their legal fees, indirectly, through its own law firm.
AIPAC's decision to cooperate with the investigators' demands and to fire the two officials was made after it became evident that the FBI had tape-recordings showing that Franklin explicitly said that the material was secret. AIPAC's assessment was that it would be difficult for the organization to continue working on Capitol Hill, and with the administration, while two of its senior officials are facing such charges.
Although the inquiry is not focused on AIPAC, it is possible the organization will be dragged into the affair when the trial begins. If the two fired staffers are put in the dock, they will try to prove that they only did what was routine and conventional work for their organization.
Last edited by Alpha on Wed Jun 01, 2005 9:19 am; edited 2 times in total | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon May 30, 2005 9:46 pm Post subject: The Non-Prosecution of AIPAC |
| The Non-Prosecution of AIPAC
AIPAC has been trying to portray its relationship with Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman as very strained, in an effort to make it appear that the two acted outside the scope of their authority. This position suffered a body blow when it was revealed that AIPAC had spent considerable money paying for the lawyers for the two supposedly fired employees. Here is the knock out: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/581817.html
Justice Dept. to indict two AIPAC staffers under U.S. Espionage Act
By Nathan Guttman
(my emphasis in bold)
"AIPAC leaders have taken a series of steps to cut themselves off from the two former officials suspected in the case. Sources close to the case say the prosecution posed four conditions to AIPAC, which would guarantee that it would not be involved in the indictments: a change of working methods to ensure that such incidents don't happen again; the firing of the two officials and public disassociation from them; no offers of high compensation or anything else to make it appear the two quit of their own volition; and no financing of their defenses.
AIPAC has abided by the first three conditions - and the severance pay offered the two was considered very low, considering the many years they worked for the lobby. But it is said to be helping with their legal fees, indirectly, through its own law firm."
My comments:
Have you ever heard of prosecutors agreeing not to prosecute a crime based on a condition that the prospective defendant agree not to appear to be helping its ex-employees who are already being charged? This is purely political, with the prosecutors simply not wanting to be embarrassed if they let AIPAC off the hook and it should be revealed that the firing was a sham.
If AIPAC is funding the defenses of the employees by providing its own legal firm for free, this proves that there cannot possibly be a conflict between the defense of the employees and AIPAC, which is impossible unless the firing is a sham. If there was any possible conflict, including a conflict derived from information that the firm had in its normal course of dealing with AIPAC, the law firm couldn't take the case (I suppose they might take the risk if they had a waiver from both the employees and AIPAC, but that just proves further collusion, as AIPAC wouldn't give the waiver if there really was a conflict).
The prosecution appears to be bending over backwards to keep AIPAC out of court, and AIPAC is doing all it can to help its supposedly rogue employees - employees who had to be fired because their unauthorized actions so embarrassed AIPAC - while appearing not to. Far from being anti-Semitic, the prosecution is bending itself into pretzels, in a way it would never do for any other defendant, to keep AIPAC out of court.
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2005/05/non-prosecution-of-aipac.html | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 10:25 pm Post subject: Protest the Role of AIPAC in US Policy toward Palestine/Isra |
| Protest the Role of AIPAC in US Policy toward Palestine/Israel
"Washington Wednesday" Action Alert
Date: June 1, 2005
BACKGROUND
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) held its annual policy conference in Washington, DC on May 22-24. AIPAC is an organization that lobbies on behalf of Israel for US military and economic aid to support Israel's illegal occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem. AIPAC's one-sided agenda is partly responsible for the highly unbalanced US policy toward Palestine/Israel.
A mid-level Defense Department analyst, Larry Franklin, was arrested recently for allegedly passing US intelligence to two AIPAC officials who were subsequently fired and are also under investigation. It is believed that this information was then passed to Israel. They will shortly be charged with espionage, according to a recent article in Haaretz. Despite the gravity of the charge, Members of Congress and the Bush Administration continued to laud AIPAC and the US-Israel relationship at its annual conference. Among the speakers at the conference were Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), Bill Frist (R-TN), and Harry Reid (D-NV), Representatives Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Dennis Hastert (R-IL), and Jane Harman (D-CA).
TAKE ACTION
1) Contact your Members of Congress and ask them to have AIPAC register as an agent of a foreign government.
Contact information for your Members of Congress can be found at www.congress.org but for specific addresses of Congressional members who spoke at the conference, see below.
AIPAC describes itself as "America's Pro-Israel Lobby" and closely coordinates policy with the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC and the Israeli government, making it an agent of a foreign government. AIPAC should not be allowed to keep its 501(c)(3) tax-deductible charitable status, but should be required to register as a lobbyist for a foreign agent.
2) Contact the seven Members of Congress and the Bush Administration who participated in the AIPAC conference and made remarks supporting or ignoring Israel's illegal military occupation:
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (CA-8), Democratic Minority Leader of the House, denied that Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory is the primary reason for the continuation of the conflict. According to Pelosi, "There are those who contend that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about Israel?s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. This is absolute nonsense. In truth, the history of the conflict is not over occupation, and never has been: it is over the fundamental right of Israel to exist." Source: http://democraticleader.house.gov/press/releases.cfm?pressReleaseID=999
Contact info for Rep. Pelosi: Phone: (202) 225-4965, Fax: (202) 225-8259, Email: sf.nancy@mail.house.gov
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice apparently believes that military occupations promote "real democracies" in the Middle East. Rice thought it "incredible" that some in the Arab media "have even asked why the only real democracies in the Middle East are found in the 'occupied lands' of Iraq and the Palestinian territories." Source: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/46625.htm
Contact info for Sec. Rice:
Phone: 202-647-5291
Email: http://contact-us.state.gov/ask_form_cat/ask_form_secretary.html
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) ignored Israel's denial of human rights, freedom, and self-determination to the Palestinian people and insisted that what unites Israel and the United States is the promotion of these values. According to Sen. Clinton,
"I want to start by focusing on our deep and lasting bond between the United States and Israel. Now, these are bonds that are more than shared interests. These are bonds forged in a common struggle for human rights, for democracy, for freedom; they are rooted in fundamental beliefs and values about the dignity and rights of men and women to live in freedom, free from fear, free from oppression." Source: http://clinton.senate.gov/~clinton/speeches/2005524910.html
Contact info for Sen. Clinton:
Phone (202) 224-4451
Fax: (202) 228-0282
Email: http://www.clinton.senate.gov/email_form.html
Sen. Bill Frist
Phone: (202) 224-3344
Fax: (202) 228-1264
E-mail form: http://frist.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=AboutSenatorFrist.ContactForm
Rep. Jane Harman
Phone: (202) 225-8220
Fax: (202) 226-7290
E-mail form: http://www.house.gov/harman/emailJane.html
Rep. Dennis Hastert
Phone: (202) 225-2976
Fax: (202) 225-0697
E-Mail form: http://www.house.gov/hastert/write1.shtml
Sen. Harry Reid
Phone: (202) 224-3542
Fax: (202) 224-7327
E-mail form: http://www.reid.senate.gov/email_form.cfm
ABOUT "WASHINGTON WEDNESDAY": The Council for the National Interest collaborates on an action alert the first Wednesday of each month on a topic related to US policy toward Israel and Palestine in association with the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and its coalition of 200 member organizations, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Partners for Peace, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation.
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