http://www.nysun.com/article/15374(via www.warandpiece.com)
BY ELI LAKE - Staff Reporter of the Sun
June 14, 2005
WASHINGTON - An analyst for the Pentagon, Lawrence Franklin, conspired to funnel classified information to Israel during a series of meetings with two lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and a top diplomat from the Israeli Embassy, according to a grand jury indictment that was unsealed yesterday.
The indictment says Mr. Franklin sought the help of a senior lobbyist for Aipac in getting a job at the National Security Council; that he enlisted the Israeli diplomat to write a letter for his daughter to ease her travels in the Middle East, and that he discussed with that diplomat weapons tests for a Middle Eastern country. Coffees were sipped, sandwiches purchased, and at one point the Israeli diplomat gave Mr. Franklin a gift card.
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Mr. Franklin, 58, pleaded innocent yesterday to all six counts against him. "Mr. Franklin entered a plea of not guilty and he is prepared to take this to trial," his lawyer, Plato Cacheris, told The New York Sun yesterday. U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III yesterday set a trial date for September 6.
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Despite a wealth of fresh details on the dates, times, and locations of those conversations, the indictment is vague on exactly what Mr. Franklin is alleged to have passed on to the Israelis and the lobbyists. For example, it refers to conversations about a "certain Middle Eastern country," widely known to be Iran. The indictment says that Mr. Franklin faxed one of the lobbyists a "classified appendix to the classified draft internal policy document defendant had previously discussed" with the two lobbyists.
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