Indictment in Franklin case

[Moses]

Pentagon brings charges against pro-Israel spy

[This headlline is inaccurate-- the Pentagon didn't bring charges, the FBI/DOJ did]

ISN SECURITY WATCH (14/06/05) - A US federal court in Virginia on Monday unsealed the charges against US Defense Department analyst Larry Franklin, a former Pentagon aide accused of sharing classified defense information with a foreign diplomat and two unauthorized civilians.

In five of the six indictments, Franklin is charged with conspiracy to disclose national defense secrets and classified information to unauthorized parties. Under the sixth count, he is accused of conspiracy to pass information to an agent and representative of a foreign government.

The indictments do not reveal the identity of the foreign diplomat, but sources close to the case have identified the diplomat as Noar Gilon, who is in charge of policy at the Israeli embassy in Washington.

According to the charges, Franklin was in close contact with Gilon. The idictments list a series of telephone calls and faxes, as well as a number of other conversations that took place between the Pentagon aide and the Israeli diplomat after Gilon had identified himself to Franklin as the embassy’s “policy person”.

A spokesman for the Israeli embassy in Washington responded by saying that “our diplomats conduct themselves in full accordance with established diplomatic practice and did not do anything that would contravene these standards”.

Israel denies any involvement in the spy scandal.

The US Justice Department has identified Franklin’s two civilian contacts as Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman who were, at the time, senior officials in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), an influential pro-Israel lobby group.

Rosen and Weissman resigned from AIPAC in the wake of allegations that they had passed on classified defense information concerning Iranian threats to Israeli civilians working in Kurdish northern Iraq - information allegedly provided to them by Franklin at a lunchtime meeting on 12 July 2004.

The AIPAC staffers were apparently unaware that Franklin was then working for the FBI.

The agency then followed Rosen and Weissman’s transfer of the classified information to an administration official, a Washington Post reporter [who?], and to Gilon at the Israeli embassy.

The FBI’s attention had been drawn to Franklin by previous meetings between the three in which Franklin claims to have passed on “highly classified” material about potential attacks on US forces in Iraq.

The grand jury is expected to file indictments against Rosen and Weissman in the near future.

Franklin pleaded not guilty to the charges on Monday. His trial is expected to begin on 6 September.
(By Dominic Moran in Tel Aviv)

[Moses]

www.usdoj.gov/usao/vae/ArchivePress/JunePDFArchive/05/20050613franklinI.pdf

Rosen and Weissman set up a meeting with Franklin and another Pentagon policy wonk ("DoD Employee B"), and pretty soon the rudiments of a spy nest were being constructed by the defendant and his co-conspirators. The indictment relates an intercepted phone conversation in which Rosen chortles excitedly en route to a meeting with Franklin that he's got "a real insider," "a Pentagon guy" on the hook. At that meeting, Franklin discloses "national defense information" to Rosen and Weissman: the two AIPACers then take the information and feed it to an unidentified journalist. That reporter is Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post – who was also of interest to prosecutors on the trail of who leaked CIA officer Valerie Plame's name to the media.

What was in it for Franklin? He is widely believed to be an ideological neoconservative and passionately devoted to Israel's cause, but there was also the chance for a promotion. After proving his usefulness to the Israelis, by the winter of February 2003 Franklin and Rosen were already talking about getting him a position on the National Security Council staff: Franklin would be "by the elbow of the president," said Rosen. Franklin asked Rosen to "put in a good word" for him, and Rosen said "I'll do what I can," remarking that their previous meeting had been "a real eye-opener."

www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=6316

[Moses]

National editor, The Washingtonian

Spy Investigation of Pentagon Analyst and AIPAC Lobbyists Appears to Involve Post Reporter Glenn Kessler

Here’s a strange one:

The Washington Post covered the breaking news on May 5 about an FBI investigation into a possible spy ring involving a Pentagon employee and two pro-Israeli lobbyists. The Pentagon policy analyst was arrested and charged with making unauthorized disclosures.

Twelve days later, news broke that a Washington Post reporter was involved in the investigation as a recipient of classified information. The FBI reportedly taped conversations between the lobbyists and the reporter.

The Post knew about its reporter’s involvement, but it has not reported the news.

Post editors must have seen this story from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a wire service, on May 17:

“Conversations that two top American Israel Public Affairs Committee staffers allegedly had with a Washington Post reporter and an Israeli diplomat appear to be a focus of a U.S. government investigation that could lead to espionage charges against the two.”

Eleven paragraphs into the piece, the authors reveal the Post reporter: State Department correspondent Glenn Kessler.

Kessler said today he could not comment.

But the JTA story by Washington bureau chief Ron Kampeas and Matthew Berger was packed with details. Based on “multiple sources,” it says:

Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin met last summer with Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman; both working for AIPAC before being fired for their involvement. Franklin told them that Iranian agents were expected to kidnap and harm American and Israeli agents in northern Iraq.

The JTA story reports that Rosen and Weissman contacted Kessler. Their contact with the journalist could provide the legal basis to charge the AIPAC lobbyists with espionage:

“The FBI apparently taped the July 21, 2004, conversation that Weissman and Rosen had with Kessler, the Washington Post reporter, according to sources. Rosen and Weissman got in touch with the White House and Kessler because they wanted to get the information out as soon as possible, sources said. Franklin told the AIPAC staffers that he was giving them the information because they had better connections than he did.

“In the exchange, Rosen, Weissman and Kessler joked about ‘not getting in trouble’ over the information, according to sources.

“Rosen said that ‘at least we have no Official Secrets Act,’ according to sources. Acquaintances say that was a standard Rosen line, distinguishing the United States from other nations—among them Britain—that criminalize the receipt of classified information.

“U.S. law is clear about assigning criminal penalties for leaking classified information, but it is murky when it comes to receiving such information.

“Prosecutors seem likely to allege that the conversation with Kessler and the comment about an ‘Official Secrets Act’ prove Rosen and Weissman knew the information was classified, according to sources familiar with the FBI interrogations.”

If its reporter is so crucial to the investigation, why has the Post not told its readers?

The Post declined to comment.

The arrest of Larry Franklin has been lightly covered by the US press. [Hmmm.... just like the Downing Street Memos-- I wonder if there is a connection?] The Post, the New York Times, and a few other dailies wrote about Franklin’s arrest.

But an espionage investigation involving AIPAC has been widely covered in the Israeli press, according to Kampeas, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency bureau chief in Washington.

JTA was established in 1917. It is essentially the Associated Press for Jewish and Israeli news media. Headquartered in New York, it has bureaus in Washington, Moscow, and Jerusalem.

Kampeas joined JTA in September 2003 after 11 years with AP. He was born in Canada.

On Saturday the New York Times reported that FBI agents have begun asking reporters about any conversations they might have had with Larry Franklin. The Times did not name any reporters, but it did mention “at least one newspaper journalist.”

If Kessler is that journalist, it would be the second time that he has been questioned by federal agents in connection with the dissemination of classified information. Under certain terms, Kessler agreed to be interviewed by federal prosecutors about the investigation into the outing of former CIA agent Valerie Plame.

In that ongoing investigation, two reporters are still facing jail time for refusing to testify. They are Judith Miller of the New York Times and Matt Cooper of Time magazine.

—HARRY JAFFE
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May 24, 2005