AIPAC

Lanny Davis Now Lobbying In Support Of Honduran Coup

Zachary Roth | July 14, 2009, 4:46PM

It seems like just yesterday that Lanny Davis was making the rounds of every news outlet that would have him, talking up Hillary Clinton's bid for the White House -- and/or pushing the Reverend Wright story.

Not too long after, the former Clinton White House counsel popped up to do damage control for hawkish Democratic congresswoman Jane Harman over the AIPAC leak story.

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AIPAC

AIPAC Spy Figure: "Zionist" Wanted Me Dead

Zachary Roth | July 2, 2009, 1:34PM

It looks like a jail sentence might not have been all that Larry Franklin, the former Pentagon official convicted of spying for Israel, had to fear in recent years.

Court documents filed last week suggest a Sopranos-like effort to get rid of Franklin, who had agreed to testify against two former AIPAC activists, CQ's Jeff Stein reports.

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AIPAC

Parsing Goss's Role In The Harman Story

Zachary Roth | May 5, 2009, 12:37PM

It's worth trying to clear up some of the confusion on a key point that came out of yesterday's post.

We wrote that, after reading the transcript of Jane Harman's wiretapped conversation with the suspected Israeli agent, then-CIA director Porter Goss signed off on the Justice Department's application for a FISA warrant to wiretap Harman herself.

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AIPAC

Secrecy Expert: Harman Leakers Likely Committed Felony

Zachary Roth | May 4, 2009, 6:08PM

Did the people -- whoever they may be -- who leaked details about Rep. Jane Harman's wiretapped conversation with a suspected Israeli agent, break the law?

The law quite clearly prohibits the unauthorized disclosure of classified information "concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government." And Steven Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy, confirmed to TPMmuckraker: "It seems crystal clear that if this was a FISA wiretap," as appears to be the case, "then whoever disclosed it committed a felony."

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AIPAC

Harman To AIPAC: I'm A "Warrior On Behalf Of Our Constitution"

Zachary Roth | May 4, 2009, 9:20AM

Jane Harman isn't backing off her call to have information about her wiretapped conversation with a suspected Israeli agent released publicly.

In fact, in a speech to AIPAC's annual policy convention, Harman doubled down on that demand. "I want it all out there. I want it in public. I want everyone to understand, including me, what has happened," she said, according to the Washington Post.

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AIPAC

Who Are The Gosslings?

Zachary Roth | May 1, 2009, 3:50PM

In recent days, speculation about who leaked to CQ the news about Jane Harman's wiretapped conversation with a suspected Israel agent has seemed to focus on former CIA director Porter Goss -- or, more precisely, the group of Goss aides known as the Gosslings.

So we thought it was worth taking a closer look at this crew. And it looks like they have quite a reputation...

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AIPAC

Report: AIPAC Case Dropped

Zachary Roth | May 1, 2009, 9:51AM

The AIPAC case -- which provided the backdrop for the current flap over Jane Harman's wiretapped conversation -- has been dropped, reports the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

A source with intimate knowledge of the case against two ex-AIPAC staffers accused of passing along classified information says the case has been dropped.

Keith Weissman, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's former Iran analyst, and Steve Rosen, its former foreign policy chief, were charged under a rarely used section of the 1917 Espionage Act that makes it a crime for civilians to receive and distribute closely held defense information. Both men were later dismissed by AIPAC, with the organization claiming the two had violated its rules; Rosen, in turn has filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against AIPAC.

Federal prosecutors reportedly had been considering dropping the criminal case in the wake of a number of recent judicial decisions that make the prosecution more difficult. Among these was an appeals court rejection of a prosecution request to review the trial judge's order that prosecutors make the case that the defendants harmed the United States and not merely benefited Israel. Some Democrats see the case as a piece with Bush-era efforts to expand government secrecy powers, but the Post quoted its sources as saying that the review would have occurred whether or not Barack Obama had won election as president.

More on this and its significance in a little while...

AIPAC

Harman And Goss: "Not ... Good Friends"

Zachary Roth | April 30, 2009, 5:10PM

Building off our post from yesterday -- in which we noted the interesting timing of the original 2006 report about the investigation into Jane Harman's AIPAC ties -- Foreign Policy's Laura Rozen has put together, on her personal blog, what amounts to a complete theory of the case. And it's a theory that implicates the Porter Goss camp right from the start.

So we thought we'd follow that road a bit further. It's not news that Harman and Goss haven't exactly been best buds, either while Goss chaired the House intelligence committee and Harman was its ranking Democrat, or later when Goss led the CIA from 2004 to 2006.* One former intel committee staffer explained the relationship to TPMmuckraker this way: "Jane is an assertive person. And Porter struck me as someone who wanted to avoid conflict. I would not say they were good friends."

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AIPAC

Harman Releases Media Statement On Media Advisor

Zachary Roth | April 30, 2009, 9:58AM

We wondered yesterday whether Lanny Davis, who was just hired by Jane Harman as a "media advisor" to deal with the AIPAC flap, was behind her very aggressive effort to show that her sense of humor is intact.

And it looks like we weren't the only people with questions about Lanny's role.

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AIPAC

Evidence Growing That Goss Camp Is Behind Harman Leak?

Zachary Roth | April 29, 2009, 5:18PM

There seems to be an emerging consensus among smart people covering the Jane-Harman/AIPAC case that the sources for CQ's original report -- which revealed that Rep. Harman had been heard on a wiretap discussing a quid pro quo with a suspected Israeli agent -- were aligned with Porter Goss, the former CIA director.

And here's some more evidence pointing in that direction:

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AIPAC

Harman: In Case You Missed It The First Time, My Sense Of Humor Is Still Intact

Zachary Roth | April 29, 2009, 2:44PM

I think we get the message ...

Following up on yesterday's rib-splitting news that Jane Harman's team for the Capital Challenge Road Race has been named "Tapped Out", Harman's office is now looking to make more headlines on the subject. Earlier this afternoon, it sent a press release reading:

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Jane Harman

Harman Hires Lanny Davis As Spin-Meister

Zachary Roth | April 29, 2009, 11:27AM

Jane Harman has hired Lanny Davis as a "media adviser" to help her deal with the fallout from the AIPAC story, reports Laura Rozen at Foreign Policy.

Hiring Davis suggests Harman -- who embarked on a media blitz last week, without perfect success, in response to the affair -- isn't so worried about the perception that she's too close to the Israel lobby. Davis -- who was special counsel to President Clinton during the Lewinsky saga, and an indefatigable spinner for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign -- has long been a supporter of AIPAC, and serves as an adviser and spokesman for the Israel Project, a hawkish, pro-Israel group. He also, for good measure, appears regularly on Fox News.

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AIPAC

Daily Show On Harman-AIPAC

Zachary Roth | April 29, 2009, 10:45AM

Jon Stewart had a good segment last night on the convoluted Jane-Harman/AIPAC affair, which brought out both the byzantine nature of the saga, and the ultimate fact that nothing much came of any of the scheming: Harman didn't get the intel job, the AIPAC guys didn't get off, and Haim Saban didn't withhold money from Democrats.

As Stewart put it: "Your government, not at work."

Watch:

Jane Harman

Harman: Despite AIPAC Flap, I Can Still Make Lame Puns

Zachary Roth | April 28, 2009, 4:23PM

It's all in good fun -- but is an alleged quid pro quo with a suspected Israeli agent really a laughing matter?

CQ reports that Jane Harman's office plans to compete in a road race tomorrow, sponsored by the American Council of Life Insurers. The Harman team's name: "Tapped Out."

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AIPAC

Did Goss Target Harman?

Zachary Roth | April 27, 2009, 5:33PM

In our last post on the Jane-Harman/AIPAC story, we noted growing evidence that Bush administration officials worked aggressively to prevent Congress from learning about Harman's wiretapped conversation with that suspected Israeli agent. But Ron Kampeas of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency had an (unfortunately titled) post late last week that took things in a very different, but equally interesting, direction.

Kampeas conducts a close reading of a New York Times report on the affair from last week to make a strong case that it was Porter Goss, then the CIA director, who took the initiative in going after Harman after hearing her on the wiretap, by trying to have authorized a separate wiretap of the lawmaker herself.

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AIPAC

Hastert: Source Said Negroponte Blocked Me From Getting Briefed On Harman Wiretap

Zachary Roth | April 27, 2009, 12:29PM

The Jane-Harman/AIPAC story is only getting more interesting.

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert has gone on the record with information that suggests a broader effort than we'd yet been aware of by the Bush administration to keep secret the fact that it had wiretapped a member of Congress.

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AIPAC

Harman-AIPAC: The Latest Developments

Zachary Roth | April 22, 2009, 3:48PM

Some recent developments in the fast-moving Harman-AIPAC story to update you on...

- Nancy Pelosi told reporters that she was briefed "a few years ago" by the NSA that they had wiretapped Harman, but wasn't told what was found, and never alerted Harman.

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Jane Harman

Blitzer v. Harman

Zachary Roth | April 22, 2009, 9:00AM

We didn't get to this yesterday, but as part of her media blitz to beat back CQ's report, Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) went on CNN to again deny that she intervened with anyone on the AIPAC case.

And Wolf Blitzer actually did a pretty good job of pressing her...

Watch:

Justice Department

The Harman-AIPAC Story: A Timeline

Zachary Roth | April 20, 2009, 5:29PM

CQ's blockbuster story, about a wiretap that picked up Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) discussing the AIPAC spying case with a "suspected Israeli agent", picks up on a sequence of complex events from several years ago, and involves several moving pieces.

So we thought it would be worthwhile to put together a timeline of events laying out the major reported developments in this sprawling story.

Without further ado:

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