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Judge
hints he could dismiss AIPAC case

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Alpha
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Joined: 06 Jan 2003
Posts:
35339

Posted: Thu Mar
30, 2006 2:53 pm    Post
subject: Judge hints he could dismiss AIPAC case

Judge hints he could dismiss
AIPAC case
Another item of proof of AIPAC power n control
of our gov't

http://www.washingtonjewishweek.com...=5044&tm=539.37/

Thursday, March 30, 2006

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3/29/2006 8:59:00 PM
Judge hints he could dismiss AIPAC
case
by Ron Kampeas
JTA News and Features

A federal judge has hinted that he might dismiss
the classified information case against two former officials
of the pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee.

Hearing a defense motion for dismissal last
Friday in an Alexandria court, District Judge T.S. Ellis III
expressed reservations about the breadth of a never-used 1917
statute at the core of the case.

"What I'm really
expressing discomfort about is that it's always nice to have a
clear precedent to follow," he said. "I think we are in new,
uncharted territory, so I'm going to consider this matter very
carefully."

Ellis gave the sides until tomorrow to
submit additional arguments, but the smiles around the defense
table suggested they had fared better than expected at the
hearing.

Steve Rosen, AIPAC's former foreign policy
director, and Keith Weissman, its former Iran analyst, were
indicted last August on charges that they relayed classified
information to fellow AIPAC staffers, journalists and
diplomats at the Israeli Embassy in Washington.

AIPAC
fired Rosen and Weissman last March, saying that information
arising out of the investigation suggested they did not
comport with AIPAC's standards. Federal prosecutors have made
clear that AIPAC is not suspected of wrongdoing.

Free-speech advocates have raised alarms about the
World War I-era statute that bans the retention and
dissemination of "information relating to the national
defense," saying its broadness collides with First Amendment
protections because it could criminalize even casual
conversations about the armed forces.

Now it is up to
Ellis to decide if the statute passes First Amendment muster
and should go to trial as planned on April 25.

Last
week's vigorous hearing anticipated one of the core arguments
to be tested if the case does go to trial: whether the
statute, which criminalizes not just the relaying of
classified information but its retention, includes oral
communications.

The indictment focuses primarily on
conversations about U.S. policy on Iran, al-Qaeda and other
areas that Rosen and Weissman allegedly conducted with a
number of government officials, especially Larry Franklin, a
former mid-level Iran analyst at the Pentagon.

Franklin pleaded guilty Jan. 20 to leaking classified
information. He was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison.

"How do you give back what you heard?" asked Rosen's
lawyer, Abbe Lowell, who led defense arguments in last week's
hearing, referring to oral exchanges of information.

Ellis picked up the point, asking Kevin DiGregory, who
is leading a large prosecution team, "What are they supposed
to do, have a lobotomy?"

DiGregory countered that he
would prove at trial that Rosen and Weissman conspired to
solicit and disseminate the classified information, and that
the nature of the information transfer was not at issue. In
other words, he argued, the issue was conduct, not speech.

"All speech is conduct," Ellis replied.

DiGregory said that excluding oral exchanges from the
statute would tie prosecutors' hands. Dismissing the case
would set a precedent that could allow, say, a spy to have a
contact read aloud a classified document, as long as he did
not physically hand it over, he argued.

Ellis seemed
most concerned by the First Amendment implications of the
statute, asking Lowell and DiGregory to consider hypothetical
cases.

Lowell, who served as chief counsel to
Democrats on the U.S. House of Representatives' Judiciary
Committee during President Clinton's impeachment hearings,
parried the hypothetical case put to him by Ellis, in which a
disgruntled government official calls a lobbyist and suggests
to him that the United States might take military action
against another nation.

To know that he is committing
a crime by just listening, Lowell said, the lobbyist would
have to know that the government official is reading from a
classified document and is not authorized to leak it.

DiGregory would not count out using the statute
against journalists, but said prosecutors would probably be
more hesitant in going after the press.

"Because of
the function the media serves in this country, we would have
to carefully scrutinize whether to take action," he said. But
he added, "If you look at the statute, it plainly applies to
journalists, anyone, whoever."

Ellis said he would
rule later on the defense's slate of subpoenas of top Bush
administration officials, including Condoleezza Rice, the
secretary of state; Stephen Hadley, the national security
adviser; and David Satterfield, the deputy ambassador in
Baghdad. He suggested that he was likely to approve the
subpoena of Satterfield, one of the government officials
identified in the indictment as leaking information to Rosen.

The defense plans to press the government on why it is
charging Rosen with accepting the leak while not prosecuting
Satterfield with leaking the information in the first place.

On another motion, Ellis asked Lowell to try one last
time to get three Israeli diplomats ‹ to whom Rosen and
Weissman allegedly relayed the classified information ‹ to
give depositions voluntarily. One of them is Naor Gilon, who
until last summer was the chief political officer at the
Israeli Embassy in Washington.

U.S. Middle East policy CONTROLLED
by pro-Israel lobby:

http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=49800

Treason at a high
level: Pentagon Zionists, AIPAC and Israel:

http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=20366

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Alpha
Lieutenant

Joined: 06 Jan 2003
Posts:
35339

Posted: Fri Mar
31, 2006 11:36 am
Post subject: 'Israel Lobby' Dean To Leave Post in June,
2006

'Israel Lobby' Dean To Leave Post in
June, 2006

http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=50404

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