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

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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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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Barack Obama

Court Rejects Obama Admin's State Secrets Claim

Zachary Roth | April 28, 2009, 2:29PM

A court has rejected the Obama administration's claim of the state secret privilege.

Via the blog Legal Pad: A three-member panel of the 9th circuit Court of Appeals ruled this morning on a request from the government that it dismiss the Jeppesen case, which focuses on the CIA's extraordinary rendition program.

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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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Alberto Gonzales

Report: Angry Intel Officers Tipped Pelosi To Harman Wiretap

Zachary Roth | April 23, 2009, 11:18AM

Another day, another advance by CQ's Jeff Stein on his Harman-AIPAC story...

Late last night, Stein reported that, after Alberto Gonzales quashed the FBI probe into Rep. Harman for political reasons, intelligence officials, angry about Gonzo's move, told Nancy Pelosi about the wiretap that had picked up Harman talking to a suspected Israeli agent -- defying the AG's order that Pelosi not be informed.

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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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George Bush

Torture Memo: Waterboarding Is "Simply A Controlled Acute Episode," Not Torture

Zachary Roth | April 16, 2009, 5:21PM

Here's the official Bush legal rationale for waterboarding -- which Eric Holder recently confirmed was torture -- from that 2002 memo by Jay Bybee.

Finally, you would like to use a technique called the "waterboard." In this procedure, the individual is bound securely to an inclined bench, which is approximately four feet by seven feet. The individual's feet are generally elevated. A cloth is placed over the forehead and eyes. Water is then applied to the cloth in a controlled manner. As this is done, the cloth is lowered until it covers both the nose and mouth. Once the cloth is saturated and completely covers the mouth and nose, air flow is slightly restricted for 20 to 40 seconds due to the presence of the cloth. This causes an increase in carbon dioxide level in the individual's blood. This increase in the carbon dioxide level stimulates increased effort to breathe. This effort plus the cloth produces the perception of "suffocation and incipient panic," i.e., the perception of drowning. The individual does not breathe any water into his lungs. During those 20 to 40 seconds, water is continuously applied from a height of twelve to twenty-four inches. After this period, the cloth is lifted, and the individual is allowed to breathe unimpeded for three or four full breaths. the sensation of drowning is immediately relieved by the removal of the cloth. The procedure may then be repeated. The water is usually applied from a canteen cup or small watering can with a spout. You have orally informed us that this procedure triggers an automatic physiological sensation of drowning that the individual cannot control even though he may be aware that he is not in fact drowning. You have also orally informed us that it is likely that this procedure would not last more than twenty minutes in any one application.

As we understand it, when the waterboard is used, the subject's body responds as if the subject were drowning -- even though the subject may be well aware that he is in fact not drowning. You have informed us that this procedure does not inflict actual physical harm. Thus, although the subject may experience the fear or panic associated with the feeling of drowning, the waterboard does not inflict physical pain. as we explained in the Section 2340A Memorandum, "pain and suffering" as used in Section 2340 is best understood as a single concept, not distinct concepts of "pain" as distinguished from "suffering".... The waterboard, which inflicts no pain or actual harm whatsoever, does not, in our view, inflict "severe pain and suffering". Even if one were to parse the stature more "finely" to attempt to treat suffering as a distinct concept, the waterboard could not be said to inflict severe suffering. The waterboard is simply a controlled acute episode, lacking the connotation of a protracted period of time generally given to suffering.

Of course, thanks to today's announcement by DOJ, CIA officers can't be prosecuted for this.

Wiretapping

Bush Intel Chiefs: Wiretapping Was Legal

Zachary Roth | April 16, 2009, 3:22PM

Earlier today, two former Bush intelligence chiefs -- John Negroponte, who was director of national intelligence, and Michael Hayden, who was CIA director -- went on MSNBC to push back against that New York Times report about wiretapping by the NSA.

Negroponte said "I have no question about the legality" of the program. Hayden used a different formulation: "National Security Agency follows the law." For whatever it's worth, those claims contradict the Times' report.

Watch:

CIA

Red Cross: CIA Interrogation Program Was "Inhuman"

Zachary Roth | April 7, 2009, 9:12AM

The journalist Mark Danner has obtained the entire report on torture by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which he published excerpts from last month. The report has been posted on the website of the New York Review of Books. Danner's new writeup of it is here.

The major new revelation concerns the active participation of medical officers in the interrogation of terrorism suspects in CIA secret prisons. The report, written in 2007, concludes that these officers committed gross violations of medical ethics, and in some cases participated in torture. The report called the CIA program "inhuman."

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