Lawyer: Rice Leaked Defense Information

[DoYouEverWonder]

April 21, 2006, 7:57 PM EDT

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice leaked national defense information to a pro-Israel lobbyist in the same manner that landed a lower-level Pentagon official a 12-year prison sentence, the lobbyist's lawyer said Friday.

Prosecutors disputed the claim.

The allegations against Rice came as a federal judge granted a defense request to issue subpoenas sought by the defense for Rice and three other government officials in the trial of Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman. The two are former lobbyists with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who are charged with receiving and disclosing national defense information.

Defense lawyers are asking a judge to dismiss the charges because, among other things, they believe it seeks to criminalize the type of backchannel exchanges between government officials, lobbyists and the press that are part and parcel of how Washington works.


http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-pentagon-spy-probe,0,4200520.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

[napi21]

1. WHAT? It's OK because that's the way Washington works????

They've fired a CIA agent for telling a reporter about illegal activities of the gov't and they're pressing charges, but it's OK for Condi because.......?????

[Oversea Visitor]

2. Everything coming apart

Now now bush you cant build house base on lies as glue they never last.

[H2O Man]

3. It's a shame

that Judge Ellis wants to dismiss this case so badly it is clouding his judgement. The US Supreme Court ruled on a challenge as to the merits of the law long ago. A lower court judge should not allow his fear that a case could damage his friends at AIPAC and in the administration to the extent that he thinks he has the authority to over-rule the Supreme Court.

[acmejack]

12. AIPAC has displayed it's clout in a very real way lately.

Ruined a couple of once respectable Professors, closed down a broadway play, open your mouth about this state of affairs and you are immediately denounced as the worst sort of anti-Semite. It's no small wonder that Judge Ellis is eager to wash his hands of the entire affair, not that it provides his actions with a cloak of legitimacy, it most certainly does not.

The American People are constantly shown that their interests are considered anything but special. It gives one pause to wonder where the concept of a Government for the People, of the People and by the People got lost...

[Poll_Blind]

15. But...but...this is PROOF AIPAC has no clout! (/sarcasm off) n/t

PB

[KoKo]

16. well said...and

it took courage to say it.

[Voltaire99]

38. Nice post

This line in particular resonates:

The American People are constantly shown that their interests are considered anything but special.

Today with our treasury stripped bare for the dubious project of exporting democracy, Americans might well feel jealous. Our system has become more and more magnanimously representational. Alas, not of us.

[station agent]

43. Okay this is THE story

Thanks for the welcomes. Nice place ya'll got here.

This seems like the case that plugs into all the other cases.

I read that Rove was directing an element of this operation that was designed to antagonoize Iran by agreeing to clandestine sweetheart deals then reneging. Real Art of War Shit. Right up there with Bush and his plan to use fake UN airplanes to provoke Hussein before the Iraq War started. These guys are dangerous clowns. Just repeating what we all know so well.

[entanglement]

44. Funny, these guys insist they have no power and then RUIN

anyone who tries to expose them.

[aquart]

4. Cool. Fire her.

[HereSince1628]

5. Doesn't this seem remarkably like Libby's defense?

All along the Plame investigation the reichwing spin has been that it's JUST politics. And besides, my bosses leak things all the time, sometimes they even tell me to leak things.

Me thinks the stack of cards has reached a height where the instability of scandals threatens to bring it all down.

[Patsy Stone]

6. Not just the defense, the whole damned MO

"On day one, Secretary of State Rice tells him certain info and on day two one of the conspirators tells him the same thing or something less volatile."

Sound familiar?

K&R

[HereSince1628]

8. Yer right of course.

It's a defense that is plausible only because it is the MO of the crooks in office.

[Patsy Stone]

9. It's getting really tired though

and that's a good thing. A bunch of one trick ponies.

[NVMojo]

7. FIRE HER ARSE!!!

[station agent]

22. Can someone summarize this

a bit better than that article? Break it down for me.

[Festivito]

25. Welcome to DU. That article seems badly written.

I'd suggest: on purpose.

Two AIPAC lobbyists,
conspire to obtain,
charged with receiving and disclosing,
information impossible for them to discern as sensitive or released,
about: al-Qaida, Khobar Towers bombing, Iran policy
(similar leak to Pentagon's Franklin who pled guilty and got 12 years)
from (possibly to be subpoenaed)Rice((alleged)leaker).

There is undercurrent that I do not understand. If you want more on this particularly, ask H2OMan. He's good, really good.

Enjoy upcoming winter. Most interesting location. -Fes

[Up2Late]

32. Maybe one of these articles will help.

(Basically, the Defense Lawyers for these two, who's Pentagon contact just got 12 years in prison, want Rice to testify to show that what the two, who are facing prison did "...was not unusual and was similar to that they had conducted with senior administration officials, including Rice.")

Apr. 22, 2006 6:11 | Updated Apr. 22, 2006 6:12

Rice asked to testify in Aipac trial

By NATHAN GUTTMAN
Washington (The Jerusalem Post)

A US district court allowed the defense in the trial of two former Aipac employees to ask Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to testify in the trial, after claiming that Rice leaked to the Aipac staffers the same information that they had received from a former Pentagon employee and for which they are being prosecuted.

Judge T.S. Ellis of the US District Court in Alexandria Virginia granted the defense's motion to subpoena Rice and three other government officials: retired general Anthony Zinni who was the administration's special envoy to the Middle East, William Burns, who was assistant Secretary of State for Near East and is now the US ambassador to Moscow and David Satterfield who was Burns' deputy and is now the Deputy Chief of Mission in Baghdad. The decision to allow the defense to proceed with the subpoena process does not ensure that the government officials will actually appear in court, but it does give the defense permission to contact the State Department and put in a request for the testimony.

In a Friday hearing, attorney Abbe Lowell, representing former Aipac staffer Steve Rosen, told the court that Rice's testimony is needed since she had met with Rosen in the past, while serving as National Security Adviser, and conveyed to him the same information that he, and his colleague Keith Weissman, later received from former Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin....

(clip)

...This is the first time Rice's name is mentioned in connection to the Aipac case. The request to subpoena her sheds some light on the possible tactics of the defense, which will seek to show that the exchange of information between Rosen and Weissman and Franklin was not unusual and was similar to that they had conducted with senior administration officials, including Rice....

(more at link)

<http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1143498894351&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull>

<http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-aipac22apr22,1,7065491.story?coll=la-headlines-nation>

<http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2006/04/21/ap2688551.html>

[DoYouEverWonder]

40. Here's an article from last year

The Scandal is Bigger Than AIPAC

By Robert Dreyfuss, TomPaine.com.

that explains some of the gory details.


Posted August 12, 2005.

Important new details of the U.S.-Israeli espionage case involving Larry Franklin, the alleged Pentagon spy, two officials of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, and an intelligence official at the Embassy of Israel emerged last week. Two AIPAC officials -- who have left the organization -- were indicted along with Franklin on charges of "communicat national defense information to persons not entitled to receive it." In plain English, if not legal-speak, that means spying.

<snip>

But the network tied to the "Franklin case" which ought to be called the "AIPAC case," since it was AIPAC that was really under investigation by the FBI -- provides an important window into a shadowy world. It is clear that by probing the details of the case, the FBI has got hold of a dangerous loose end of much larger story. By pulling on that string hard enough, the FBI and the Justice Department might just unravel that larger story, which is beginning to look more and more like it involves the same nexus of Pentagon civilians, White House functionaries, and American Enterprise Institute officials who thumped the drums for war in Iraq in 2001-2003 and who are now trying to whip up an anti-Iranian frenzy as well.

<snip>

Fourth, Rosen and Weissman told Franklin that they would try to get him a job at the White House, on the National Security Council staff. Who did they talk to at the White House, if they followed through? What happened?

http://www.alternet.org/story/24011


BTW: Welcome to DU

[AlCzervik]

10. now imagine the outcry is this was Albright, they'd be gathering

pitch forks and torches but in bushco this is business as usual.

[jazzjunkysue]

11. Rule #1 in a dysfunctional family: No talk. That's why they don't turn in

their own. Because if you start kicking up sand, everyone gets it in the eye.

Well, out of their own personal power issues, they've used their power to punish a few nay-sayers, and it's all coming back to bite them in the ars.

They are the architects of their own demise.

I saw this coming way, way back in 2,000, and used to think I was the only one.

This is all playing out the only way it can: A massacre.

[BootinUp]

13. Was this a good leak? /sarcasm

[tanyev]

31. Of course it was.

Any leak of information that helps Bushco is a good leak. Any leak of information that hurts Bushco is a baaaad leak and those people need to be prosecuted. Heck, they'd probably execute them if they could get away with it.

[enough]

14. If this ever gets to trial (which I doubt), it should be interesting. (nt)

[Media_Lies_Daily]

17. Time to clean house. Every NeoCon has to go, and go now!

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

18. Treason is now commonplace and mundane.

Thanks Republicans. Hold your heads high.

[goforit]

19. But my friend, this is where the buck stops.....treason is not acceptable!

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

20. We'll see.

Imho, Condi is the biggest prize. She's the indictment keystone. :D

[lovuian]

21. These people are traitors and are NOT AMERICANS!!!

you can tell their greed for power has made them available
to these charges!!!

[tabasco]

24. They are loyal to multinational corporations ...

which have loyalty to no nation.

[jazzjunkysue]

27. Loyal only to the other members of the board of directors.

They're called barons, because they appoint themselves as legislators, judge, jury, by owning everyone else.

Welcome to the 12th century.

[dysfunctional press]

23. bush told her it was okay to do so...

so no problem. :eyes:

[DoYouEverWonder]

26. Bush gave his team carte blanche

to do whatever they wanted. They are the corrupt ones who live without law.

In their world, Bush is King and they can do whatever they want to achieve their goals. Unfortunately, their ultimate goal is to destroy the USA and our democratic form of government. In my book, that's treason

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

28. The way Washington works *is* criminal.

[Julius Civitatus]

29. Treason!!!

[shadowknows69]

30. Gee, another treasonous act by our government

Why even bother to report them anymore?

[Up2Late]

33. HEY! Newsday dropped the original article! Forbes still has it though!

Here's a link: <http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2006/04/21/ap2688551.html>

[DoYouEverWonder]

34. They changed the story and the headline

Here's the new one:

Spokesman Denies Rice Leaked Defense Info

What twits.

[Independent_Liberal]

35. Kick!

Indict Condi!

[TexasLawyer]

36. she's not going to appear

even if called.


Last update - 23:45 22/04/2006
Virginia Judge allows defense in AIPAC trial to summon Rice
By Shmuel Rosner, Haaretz Correspondent

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis on Friday allowed the defense to summon Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to testify in the trial of two former AIPAC officials accused of disclosing classified information.

Ellis ruled that Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman's lawyers established sufficient reason to call for Rice to take the stand, adding that she could decline the invitation by handing in a written document explaining her reasons for doing so.

The two former pro-Israel lobbyists claim Rice and Rosen discussed the classified information during a meeting. The prosecution said Rice denied those claims.

A source in the State Department told Haaretz a few days ago that if she were summoned, Rice would decline to appear in court.

<snip>

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=708014&contrassID=1&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=0

[HuffleClaw]

37. 'decline' ?

claiming some sort of 'executive privilege' i suppose. this administrations' complete contempt for the law is a disgrace.

[The Wizard]

39. Rice is a perjurer.

Lying under oath is second nature for any neocon.
Lying scumbags and war profiteers all. Condiliar should be gang raped by a pack of rabid wolves, and the video sold on e-bay with the proceeds going to victims of the Bush junta. Tell me, who wouldn't pay to see rabid wolves having their way with the Secretary of State? I know it's a bit graphic, but who'd pay attention otherwise?
No one had any idea that they'd use planes as missiles. yeah right.
Repubes need not worry; Diebold and a compliant corporate media will fix everything.:grr:

[McCamy Taylor]

41. The old "implicate Condie so the Prosecution will drop the case" defense

[Rex]

42. Mushrooms, purple hearts, cluster bombs,

blue people, rigor mortise. What else do they want?

[jazzjunkysue]

45. The story made in onto CNN Headline News today.

Kerry's speech was on another channel, too.

The TV is turning on *. It really is.

[annabanana]

46. We'll know this morning...

If Condi is in the TV news today. . There will be leaves turning in a large wood indeed!