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December 24, 2004/Tevet 12 5765, Vol. 57, No. 17
FBI waited to move on AIPAC
EDWIN BLACK
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
WASHINGTON - The FBI's investigation of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee did not go into high gear until more than a year after the Pentagon's top Iran analyst allegedly passed foreign policy strategy information to two AIPAC officials.
The investigation only intensified in July 2004, when the FBI allegedly directed the same Pentagon analyst, Larry Franklin, to conduct a sting operation against AIPAC officials, providing them with purportedly classified information to pass on to Israel, according to sources close to the investigation.
A month later, the FBI raided AIPAC offices, confiscating files from two senior staffers.
On Dec. 1, the FBI returned to the headquarters of the pro-Israel lobby, searching staffers' offices. The FBI also issued subpoenas to four AIPAC staffers to appear before a grand jury. Prosecutors aimed to have the grand jury hearings by the end of December, but sources close to the investigation said Dec. 22 that no date has been set yet.
Most accounts of the AIPAC investigation have focused on the Franklin lunch with Steve Rosen, AIPAC's director of foreign policy issues, and Keith Weissman, an Iran specialist, on June 26, 2003, in Arlington, Va.
The chronology is important, say several sources with direct access to the prosecution's case, because it suggests that that meeting produced insufficient grounds for the FBI to pursue a case against AIPAC.
The AIPAC probe appears to have intensified only after the FBI monitored a call between Franklin and reporters - without his knowledge - at CBS News in May 2004, in which he allegedly disclosed information about aggressive Iranian policy in Iraq.
After the call, the FBI's counterintelligence division, headed by David Szady, confronted Franklin, according to sources familiar with the case.
Threatened with charges of espionage and decades of imprisonment, Franklin was deployed to set up a sting against AIPAC, the sources say.
AIPAC had been under intense scrutiny by the FBI throughout early 2003, but the law enforcement officials had seen nothing to justify prosecutorial action, sources said.
At the lunch with AIPAC, Franklin allegedly mentioned information from a classified Pentagon policy paper, but he did not pass along the document.
The document proposed an American strategy to destabilize Iran in the face of its growing nuclear potential, according to the sources.
AIPAC steadfastly has denied that it violated any laws, and insists it is the victim of a witch-hunt.
Franklin had been under increased scrutiny since disclosure of a secret meeting in December 2001 with former Iranian spy and arms merchant Manucher Ghorbanifar that some in the Washington establishment claimed was unauthorized.
In the conversation with CBS, Franklin's remarks reportedly revealed sensitive intelligence intercepts, potentially compromising sources and methods of intelligence gathering, according to some sources aware of the call. Others aware of the call say the FBI would be hard-pressed to prove Franklin's comments actually breached national security.
During this time, Franklin was not represented by an attorney and the government placed him on unpaid leave.
Franklin, who is the sole breadwinner for five children and a wheelchair-bound wife, was terrified by the threats, according to sources familiar with his situation.
Szady's FBI counterintelligence division then devised a strategy to use Franklin as a plant to set up AIPAC, according to sources.
FBI officials refused to discuss the matter.
The FBI sting, first reported in The Jerusalem Post, allegedly directed Franklin to offer AIPAC officials supposedly urgent classified information about Iranian plans to kidnap and murder Israelis operating in northern Iraq. Whether the information was manufactured or accurate is unclear.
Believing they had a life or death situation on their hands, AIPAC officials reportedly contacted the Israeli Embassy, thereby prompting FBI action.
During June, July and August, Franklin, still apparently being directed by the FBI, made a series of calls to prominent personalities - conversations that have been labeled by the recipients as "weird," "curious" and "totally out of keeping for Larry."
On Aug. 27, 2004, the FBI counterintelligence division raided AIPAC. The raid and the information about a Pentagon "mole" working with AIPAC were immediately leaked to CBS, and led the network's evening news.
FBI investigators again searched AIPAC's headquarters on Dec. 1. The agents subpoenaed four top officials to appear before a grand jury in Virginia later this month. The four are executive director Howard Kohr, managing director Richard Fishman, communications director Renee Rothstein, and research director Raphael Danziger.
FBI officials refused to discuss the search and subpoenas.
Meanwhile, four congressional Democrats have asked the Bush administration to brief Congress on the FBI probe.
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