AIPAC versus FBI

Here's an interesting and even-handed account of the case against AIPAC's Keith Weissman and Steven Rosen for passing along classified information. Emotionally, I'm torn between amusement at the idea of seeing AIPAC's ox gored and the reality that the precedent the government is seeking to put in place here has some grim implications for press freedom. I am sure, however, that this line of argument is absurd:

“It’s absurd for anyone to think that the Israelis have to enlist people to spy,” says Sandra Charles, a former Pentagon and National Security Council official who consults in Washington for Persian Gulf Arab governments. “They can go to the highest levels of the administration if they want to find out what the thinking is on US policy.”

Charles might want to visit Jonathan Pollard in prison if she really thinks Israel would never try to enlist spies. The fact that so many US government officials are willing to talk to Israeli officials or Israel's friends is precisely the point, it makes Israeli espionage possible, not superfluous.

Comments

From the article: "In December 2000, both men met over lunch with Kenneth Pollack, then a Persian Gulf specialist on the National Security Council staff under President Bill Clinton. "
---------------
Hmmm.
Kenneth Pollack.
Kenneth Pollack.
Where have I heard that name before?

Posted by Don Williams | January 15, 2008 12:08 PM

Matt, re: Charles' comment. Look at her descriptor.

She's just trying to make the point that her work is absolutely necessary to her clients because "the enemy" is so super connected/tight with us.

She's just shilling for her business interests, nothing more.

Posted by SoCalJustice | January 15, 2008 12:33 PM

Since when are consultants for the Gulf monarchies the go-to source on US-Israel relations?

Posted by heedless | January 15, 2008 12:39 PM

Matt writes, "...the precedent the government is seeking to put in place here has some grim implications for press freedom."

...But I don't see any grim implications for journalists that weren't there, before. The article hardly makes any case for this argument, instead attributing it to Press Freedom groups. Bullshit. If you get classified info, you can't just tell your buddies in the newsroom or foreign governments who are paying you. That makes you a spy.

I do see some grim implications for foreign agents trying to get the U.S. to fight superfluous Middle Eastern wars...

Oh wait, AIPAC isn't a "foreign agent". OK then, grim implications for political action committee... Oh wait, AIPAC isn't a PAC, either.

I'm not sure if amorphous AIPAC should have to follow any rules I guess... kinda like the state of Israel!

But boy I'm just looking forward to hearing testimony from Marc Grossman, Larry Franklin, Condoleezza, and the gang about the conversations with Rosen and Weissman on Iraq! Can't wait for April!

Posted by Murph | January 15, 2008 12:45 PM

"If you get classified info, you can't just tell your buddies in the newsroom or foreign governments who are paying you. That makes you a spy."

So if the same info was published on the front page of the NY Times it would have been ok?

Posted by Dave | January 15, 2008 1:00 PM

As some posters here may recall, my love and admiration for AIPAC has ..er..limits.

But in fairness to Weissman and Rosen, the behavior the article describes is not how espionage is usually committed -- as anyone can tell by reading past FBI indictments of spies, in which spy tradecraft is described. (The court submittals are public documents).

Assuming the above article is a reasonably complete description, you see few signs of espionage tradecraft. And the Israelis are hardly virgins at this game.

Franklin had SCI access --which meant he was subject to random monitoring and polygraph tests.
He was unlikely to conceal any guilty behavior under the poly -- although it is not infallible.(See Aldrich Ames).

Hence, the rational action for Israel would have been to:
a) Get Franklin under strong control -- i.e., put him on a payroll and secretly film him taking the money. (You don't want your spy executed for espionage, but you certainly want to be able to threaten him with that prospect via exposure if he gets uncooperative.)

b) Suck up as much info as possible before Franklin is discovered

c) To ensure Franklin is not bullshitting you . i.e., is not working as a double agent for the FBI (or for the Iranians, heh heh heh) , insist that he deliver official US classified documents with classification markings.

(Note: The discovery of classified documents in Franklin's home is baffling -- and suggestive that Franklin is a moron.

No innocent party takes classified material home -- the rules are clear.

On the other hand, no competent spy does so either. If Franklin was spying, he should either have handed the materials off to the Israelis for rapid photography and then returned them to the office a few hours later -- or he should have made copies at work and dropped the copies off at a "dead drop" site for retrieval by the Israelis. )

d) If Franklin was spying, there should have been no contact between Franklin and Rosen after an initial recruitment -- because of Rosen's position at AIPAC and AIPAC's obviously sympathy for Israel. Some anonymous person would have been Franklin's case officer and would have managed his actions.

Not even the Iranian intelligence service could have contrived a fuckup of this magnitude which hurts Israel and her American supporters.

e) If Franklin was spying, contacts between him and his case officer would rarely have been in public meetings open to FBI film crews and sound recorders. Even a married man carrying on an affair has enough sense to grab a random motel room.

f) In many cases, info is exchanged without any meetings at all. Because that is the most dangerous time -- the window of clandestine activity for which no innocent explanation can be given.

A copy of a classified document --or film of same -- is put in a container disguised as trash, the container is dropped off at a pre-assigned spot (behind a telephone on a lonely country road,etc), and a chalk mark is made on some public spot to let the case officer know that the info is waiting to be picked up.

g) Associates of the case officer monitor the progress of the spy to the drop off site and look for signs of FBI trackers. (Aldrich Ames handlers had him follow an unlike series of turns through several country lanes to see if anyone was following him.)

There are variations of course -- a spy drives by a building and transmits the info over a low-power transmitter. Surveillance is done by small CCTV cameras vice human watchers. A small plastic box with Minox film and with a strong magnet glued to it is palmed onto the bottom of a steel shelf at the public library ( under the library's copy of "The Israel Lobby", hee hee hee).

h) But the techniques -- and the need for them -- are obvious. The above article doesn't mention any signs of espionage tradecraft by Franklin and the AIPAC officers. Maybe the FBI will present it at the April 2008 trial.

Posted by Don Williams | January 15, 2008 1:06 PM

Correction: "behind a telephone on a lonely country road" should have been "behind a telephone POLE on a lonely country road".

The Yglesias Mad Cow typo virus has evidently mutated into a contagion.

Posted by Don Williams | January 15, 2008 1:13 PM

I'd not put much credence in the FBI being very good at catching or stopping spys or their accounts of how it's done. Why? Robert Hansen, for one. Don, for example, said, "If Franklin was spying, he should either have handed the materials off to the Israelis for rapid photography and then returned them to the office a few hours later." You'd think that would be so. But in the Hansen case it turned out that this wasn't what was done at all. People asked how Hansen could photo-copy all the secrect materials he gave to the Russians/Soviets. But it turns out he wasn't photo-copying them- he was just stealing the originals and never replacing them at all. No one noticed for years and years. This seems to be pretty typical both for real-world spies (who are not like in the movies) and for the FBI (who is also not like in the movies.)

Posted by Matt (not the famous one) | January 15, 2008 1:15 PM

Re Matt's comment "I'd not put much credence in the FBI being very good at catching or stopping spys or their accounts of how it's done. Why? Robert Hansen, for one."
-------------
1) The FBI indictments I cite were cases in which they were successful in capturing spies -- and describe the actions of the spy under surveillance. I.e, they describe how the spy ..er.. spied, not the way the FBI would have had the spy spy.

2) Hansen was a very unusual case -- he was a spy who maintained control. He approached the Soviets -- they didn't approach him. He kept his identity secret from his Soviet employers --so they had to accept what he fed them via dead drops, not tell him what to do. He chose when to stop.

Hansen was apparently caught largely because of the fall of the Soviet Union -- news accounts indicate that CIA spies in the KGB managed to get the documents he had turned over, got his fingerprints off of it, and then got him to start up spying again --after he had been idle for years -- by posing as his KGB handlers. Even then, Hansen sensed at the end that he was in the government's sights.

Hansen was probably helped by the fact that he was in the FBI's Counterintelligence group -- and hence knew how the FBI goes about spotting spies.

Posted by Don Williams | January 15, 2008 1:27 PM

Rosen and Weissman may have trafficked the classified information to the press, but that was a subordinate function of trying to influence the US posture toward Iran, on behalf of Israel.

If they had suceeded, along with AIPAC and other foreign agents, the US might be in a ground war in Iran, right now, NIE be damned.

This has little to do with "freedom of the press", and none of the journalists involved (Glenn Kessler, reporters at Reuters, etc) have been indicted.

See the book: "Foreign Agents: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee from the 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal" for details.

Posted by IRmep | January 15, 2008 3:12 PM

Re IRinep

Mr. IRinep cites a book by Grant Smith, one of the most notorious lying Israel bashers, right up there with scumbags Robert Novak, James Earl Carter, Steven Walt, and John Mearsheimer. The only thing one needs to know about Mr. Smith his the praise for his book from the left wing antisemitic web site counterpunch and various pro-Arab websites.

Posted by SLC | January 15, 2008 3:39 PM

There are a few factual errors in this AIPAC story, but this is the most important:

Contention: "Other detractors contend that because it lobbies for aid and policies that benefit Israel, AIPAC ought to register with the Justice Department as a foreign agent. But unlike organizations and firms that represent foreign interests and governments, AIPAC doesn’t get money from and is not contractually linked to Israel."

That's not really true. The 1963 Fulbright hearings found that over $5 million had been laundered from the Jewish Agency in Israel to the US in order to indirectly fund think tanks, PR efforts, and start up AIPAC. Isaiah L. Kenen, the founder of AIPAC, and a former registered agent for the American Section of the Jewish Agency in New York, dropped his registration and paycheck when he formed AIPAC. However, the Jewish Agency was still funneling tens of thousands to him through the American Zionist Council as a "service provider" for writing his propaganda newsletter, the "Near East Report". The year AIPAC was started up, The AZC's Department of Information budget went down from $750,000 to $175,500 for AIPAC's startup costs.

So yes, AIPAC did get originally money from Israel to commence operations, carefully laundered into the US in a way that infuriated Senator Fulbright. However, then, as now, there are prominent individuals who will step forward to question and smear anyone taking too much interest in the opaque operations of this particular foreign agent. No charges were filed.

I don't find this article to be very "even handed". If Rosen and Weissman caused American deaths indirectly by tipping off the Iranians that their codes were broken (via Chalabi), is that okay? That would be more relevant than whether they walk their dogs and love their kids.

Posted by IRmep | January 15, 2008 4:00 PM

Charles might want to visit Jonathan Pollard in prison if she really thinks Israel would never try to enlist spies.

But Jonathan Pollard's a hero! Anyone who says otherwise must be an anti-semite!

The above line of reasoning drives me nuts.

Posted by Shinyk | January 15, 2008 4:02 PM

AIPAC versus FBI

"Whoever wins, We lose"

Posted by otto | January 15, 2008 5:21 PM

I have no problem with Jonathan Pollard being released so long as Leonard Pelletier is released with him. What's the point of keeping Pollard in prison any longer? It's bullshit.

Posted by Trevor | January 15, 2008 5:41 PM

Re "What's the point of keeping Pollard in prison any longer? "
----------
Because it teaches a lesson to that synagogue back in Bohemia that fucked with Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger's grandfather. As did the protective arm Casper put around Hezbollah and the AWACS he sold to the Saudis. Plus there was that deal with the Iranians.

Mentioning all of which lets me rubs salt in some old wounds and raise SLC's blood pressure another 30 points. hee hee

Posted by Don Williams | January 15, 2008 6:22 PM

Re Irmep

Mr. Irmeps' invoking of one of the biggest Israel bashers ever, William Halfbright, as an authority on US/Israel relationships is typical. However, I suggest that one visit the web site linked to his name in which will be found the greatest collection of lying shitheads this side of rense and stormfront.

Re Trevor

With respect to Mr. Pollard, it is my understanding that he is eligible for parole but has refused to apply and has demanded an unconditional sentence reduction or pardon. If all he wants to do is get out of the slammer, he should apply for parole.

Posted by SLC | January 15, 2008 6:28 PM

This article published today indicates Pollard has appealed to the Supreme Court -- see http://www.stljewishlight.com/news/285374831929715.php

I am not inclined to be sympathetic to Pollard, but even I fail to understand why his lawyers --who have security clearances -- are blocked from looking at Caspar Weinberger's memo -- the one that led the Judge to break the plea agreement made with Pollard and to give Pollard the life sentence.

Implicit in the idea of Justice is the idea of rigorous Truth -- and fair debate between the defense and prosecution.

Posted by Don Williams | January 15, 2008 6:47 PM

There's no question that AIPAC is an organization with direct historical ties with Israel as a foreign agent, despite skirting the legal niceties in terms of registering as one. The Grant Smith book, which I've referenced here before, proves that.

Don, I'd suggest you check out some of the details of the AIPAC case. They did indeed engage in some fairly minimal "tradecraft". There's a reason for that.

The fact is that this wasn't "spying" in the classical Mossad/KGB turning whoever sense. This was a case where agents of Israel had deep connections with various people in the government who were used to passing information around like it was candy without consideration for the implications on US national security - because they didn't CARE about US national security, only Israel's security and interests. Richard Perle got fired or investigated for doing this crap, if I remember correctly.

Juan Cole comments on this process in a 2004 antiwar.com article"

"The FBI has evidence that Franklin passed a draft presidential directive on Iran to AIPAC, which then passed it to the Israelis. The FBI is construing these actions as espionage or something close to it. But that is like getting Al Capone on tax evasion. Franklin was not giving the directive to AIPAC in order to provide them with information. He was almost certainly seeking feedback from them on elements of it. He was asking, "Do you like this? Should it be changed in any way?" And, he might also have been prepping AIPAC for the lobbying campaign scheduled for early in 2005, when Congress will have to be convinced to authorize military action, or at least covert special operations, against Iran. AIPAC probably passed the directive over to Israel for the same reason – not to inform, but to seek input. That is, AIPAC and Israel were helping write U.S. policy toward Iran, just as they had played a key role in fomenting the Iraq war."

Justin Raimondo points out their minor tradecraft in an article from 2004:

"However, as Labor Day weekend 2004, drew near, they started to panic: Rosen got in touch with his Israeli superiors and, declining to talk about the specifics over the phone, indicated the need for an urgent meeting. The authorities were listening to every word as the spy ring scrambled to cover its tracks, following their targets through the streets of the Beltway, as they met outside the train station, and in one day changed restaurants three times in order to evade any possible surveillance. You can almost hear The Man From U.N.C.L.E. theme song in the background…"

Not to mention our Mr. Saban's connection to this case, from a Raimondo article in AmCon last May:

"The intrigue thickened last October as word leaked that a proposed deal was dangled in front of Rep. Jane Harman: AIPAC would back her to become head of the House Intelligence Committee if she would urge the government to treat Rosen, Weissman—and AIPAC itself—with kid gloves. The Forward reported, “Several congressional sources confirmed that major donors to the Democratic Party have been lobbying Pelosi on behalf of Harman’s nomination to head the intelligence committee and that these attempts were not welcomed by the House Democratic leader.” Time named Haim Saban, the billionaire Hollywood producer and major AIPAC moneybags, as one of the supplicants. Pelosi didn’t fall for it, and Harman was rebuffed. Perhaps this was in the background when the speaker was booed as she addressed the subsequent AIPAC national conference, although Pelosi got back in the Israel lobby’s good graces after she stripped a provision from the military appropriations bill that would have required the president to go to Congress for permission to attack Iran."

From a 2005 article:

"AIPAC’s defenders lamely claim “mishandling” classified information is not the same as espionage. Franklin is charged with violating Title 18, Section 793(d) of the Espionage Act, which makes it a crime to pass to unauthorized persons “information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation.” But Rosen and Weissman, who handed over classified information to Gilon, could face charges under Section 794, which carries a punishment of either death or life imprisonment for the crime of communicating information relating to the national defense “to any foreign government.” According to a report in the New York Sun, the charges are so classified that AIPAC lawyer, Nathan Lewis, was required to get a security clearance to hear them."

What really matters, though, is WHY the investigations began in the first place. As Raimondo puts it:

"The mystery at the heart of this investigation is how and when it began. Warren Strobel of Knight Ridder reported in 2004 that the probe “has been going on for more than two years,” and UPI’s Richard Sale cites a “former senior U.S. government official” as saying, 'In 2001, the FBI discovered new, ‘massive’ Israeli spying operations in the East Coast, including New York and New Jersey,' and they began watching Gilon, who eventually led them to Franklin. The JTA dates the genesis of the inquiry more precisely: 'information garnered during the investigation into alleged leaks from a Pentagon analyst to the two former AIPAC staffers suggests the FBI began probing AIPAC officials just before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.'"

Hmmm, just before 9/11...

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 15, 2008 9:23 PM

Let's also point out that FBI whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds ties AIPAC into the ATC conspiracy.

From the "Let Sibel Edmonds Speak" Web site:

"Sibel described the overlap in this interview with Antiwar's Chris Deliso in 2005:

SE: Look, I think that that [the AIPAC investigation] ultimately involves more than just Israelis – I am talking about countries, not a single country here. Because despite however it may appear, this is not just a simple matter of state espionage. If (Patrick) Fitzgerald and his team keep pulling, really pulling, they are going to reel in much more than just a few guys spying for Israel.

CD: A monster, 600-pound catfish, huh? So the Turkish and Israeli investigations had some overlap?

SE: Essentially, there is only one investigation – a very big one, an all-inclusive one. Completely by chance, I, a lowly translator, stumbled over one piece of it.

But I can tell you there are a lot of people involved, a lot of ranking officials, and a lot of illegal activities that include multi-billion-dollar drug-smuggling operations, black-market nuclear sales to terrorists and unsavory regimes, you name it. And of course a lot of people from abroad are involved. It's massive. So to do this investigation, to really do it, they will have to look into everything.

CD: But you can start from anywhere –

SE: That's the beauty of it. You can start from the AIPAC angle. You can start from the Plame case. You can start from my case. They all end up going to the same place, and they revolve around the same nucleus of people. There may be a lot of them, but it is one group. And they are very dangerous for all of us.

In 2004, Knight Ridder's Warren Strobel and Jonathon Landay confirmed that the 'AIPAC case' was much more serious than anything that has seen the light of day so far:

"Several U.S. officials and law-enforcement sources said yesterday that the scope of the FBI probe of Pentagon intelligence activities appeared to go well beyond the Franklin matter.

FBI agents have briefed top White House, Pentagon and State Department officials on the probe. Based on those briefings, officials said, the bureau appears to be looking into other controversies that have roiled the Bush administration, some of which also touch Feith's office.

They include how the Iraqi National Congress, a former exile group backed by the Pentagon, allegedly received highly classified U.S. intelligence on Iran; the leaking of the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame to reporters; and the production of bogus documents suggesting that Iraq tried to buy uranium for nuclear weapons from the African country of Niger. Bush repeated the Niger claim in making the case for war against Iraq.

"The whole ball of wax" was how one U.S. official privy to the briefings described the inquiry."

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 15, 2008 9:36 PM

The stupid on this thread! It burns!

"...But I don't see any grim implications for journalists that weren't there, before. The article hardly makes any case for this argument, instead attributing it to Press Freedom groups. Bullshit. If you get classified info, you can't just tell your buddies in the newsroom or foreign governments who are paying you. That makes you a spy."

Except sometimes it is necessary to leak classified information for the sake of our democracy, such as the Pentagon Papers. This precedent could make such leaks even more illegal. Since a large amount of classified info and growing (according to people in charge of keeping this stuff classified and archived) is only classified to protect certain powerful individuals' reputations (there was a good article in Slate about this about three years ago, but I'm too lazy to look for it). The feds are using this case in particular because they know liberals are more reluctant to go to AIPAC's aid in such matters than any other major lobbying group save the NRA.

Posted by Reality Man | January 16, 2008 4:14 AM

Apropos Grant Smith and his invocation of Senator William Halfbright, attached is an article about the late Arthur Schlesinger Jr. including conclusive evidence of the late and unlamented Senator Halfbrights' antipathy towards the state of Israel.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1200308094498&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Re Richard Steven Hack

This blogs favorite ex-con, bank robber Hack weighs in again with a pile of crap, quoting Israel bashers Grant Smith and Juan Cole (the latter, of course, a proven liar) as authorities. Let us not forget Mr. Hacks' prison record, his advocation of assassinating police officers and his threats of bodily harm against nutcase radio talk show host Michael Savage.

Posted by SLC | January 16, 2008 7:52 AM