Articles
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July 2009, pages 24-25
Outside the Beltway
What Goes Around, Comes Around
By James G. Abourezk
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THE BIG news—all in one recent week—was the defection of Republican Sen. Arlen Specter to the Democrats; the bankruptcy filing of the Chrysler Corporation; and finally, the retirement of Justice David Souter from the U.S. Supreme Court.
The much smaller news—at least as far as the mainstream media were concerned—was that federal prosecutors announced they were dropping espionage charges against former AIPAC officials Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman. The story was so small that it barely was a blip on the media’s radar, bringing absolutely no comment on the network news and talk shows.
That’s known as clever public relations. Announce the bad news on a day when it won’t be noticed.
Rosen and Weissman had been charged in 2005 with the crime of espionage—specifically, handing over to Israel secret information they had retrieved from Larry Franklin, who was then a Pentagon policy analyst working for Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz.
Franklin, who pleaded guilty to relaying top-secret information on Iran to Rosen and Weissman, was sentenced to 12 years and 7 months in prison.
In the New York Times story detailing the Justice Department’s decision to drop the charges against Rosen and Weissman, the prosecutors claimed that the presiding federal judge, T.S. Ellis III, had raised the bar for the prosecution to prove its case to a level it did not believe it could meet. Judge Ellis ruled that the prosecutors could only prevail if they could prove that Rosen and Weissman “knew that their distribution of the information would harm U.S. national security.” That was enough to make federal prosecutors throw in the towel and dismiss the charges. Strange, they sent the government official, Larry Franklin, to prison for over 12 years, but didn’t feel they could win the case against the two AIPAC honchos. That’s probably the first time in history the Justice Department has given up on a criminal case.
No one at Justice Department headquarters took part in the announcement, but it was made by the prosecutors themselves, presumably by the U.S. attorney in charge of the prosecution.
I’ve had some experience in court with U.S. attorneys. What I know about how they operate is that if they don’t have a case, they will bring so many charges that they will force the unlucky defendant to plead guilty to at least one or two of them just to get rid of the shower of charges.
There was one very interesting twist to the story that came out later. That had to do with Democratic California Rep. Jane Harman. She was overheard, in 2006, on a legal phone wiretap discussing with a known Israeli agent how she could become chair of the House Intelligence Committee. She told the agent that she would lobby the Justice Department, asking it to reduce the espionage charges against Weissman and Rosen. The trade-off was that the Israeli agent promised to lobby Speaker Nancy Pelosi to get Harman appointed Intelligence Committee chair.
The revelation raised some very interesting points. First, the FBI had to have asked the special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court for permission to wiretap the Israeli agent. Secondly, Harman was caught on the phone tap making a deal with him. As she was hanging up she told the agent “this conversation doesn’t exist,” making the entire matter suspicious. The most interesting point is this: who, in the FBI, was upset enough about what Harman was doing to leak the contents of the phone tap to the Congressional Quarterly’s Jeff Stein?
Thirdly, and ironically, Harman earlier had voted to allow the Bush administration to continue with illegal, warrantless wiretaps. She was, as they say, hoisted on her own petard. But she didn’t go quietly. She screamed to high Heaven that it was illegal to wiretap her—although she obviously didn’t mind other Americans being wiretapped by the Bush secret police. So far as I know, nothing has, nor will anything happen to Congresswoman Harman, except that she may lose her next election. I guess it depends on how pro-Israel her district is. Don’t forget about Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachman, who is as loopy as they come in politics. But her district is apparently as loopy as she is, because they keep returning her to office.
It’s an interesting exercise to compare the federal prosecution—or, now, non-prosecution—of Rosen and Weissman to the experience of Sami Al-Arian, who was a college professor in Tampa, Florida. Sami was a Palestinian, born in Kuwait. And why wasn’t he born in Palestine like a good Palestinian should be? Because, most likely, his parents were chased out of Palestine when Israel undertook its ethnic cleansing of that land in order to create an exclusive Jewish state.
Al-Arian was charged in 2003 in a 50-count indictment which essentially consisted of a smorgasbord of terrorism charges. After spending 28 months in solitary confinement under harsh conditions, he finally was tried in 2005.The trial lasted six months, with some 80 witnesses and 400 transcripts of intercepted phone conversations and faxes.
At the end of the prosecution’s case, Al-Arian’s lawyers rested, without offering any evidence or witnesses in his defense. After 13 days of deliberation, the jury acquitted Al-Arian on 8 of 17 counts, and deadlocked on the others, with jurors favoring acquittal 10 to 2. Two of the co-defendants charged along with Al Arian were completely acquitted.
Undaunted, the Justice Department said it was considering re-trying Al-Arian on the deadlocked jury charges, one of which carried a life sentence.
Rather than fighting on, exhausted from being held in solitary confinement for several years awaiting trial, Al-Arian agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to contribute services to or for the benefit of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (which is designated as a terrorist organization, but which the FBI admitted during trial had never carried out an attack outside of Israel. The United States has designated a number of Palestinian liberation groups as terrorists at the behest of Israel—groups that have never attacked the United States).
As part of his plea agreement the prosecution agreed not to charge Al-Arian with any other crimes, and he agreed to expedited deportation.
In fact, however, Al-Arian was charged with criminal contempt of court when he refused to testify before a Northern Virginia grand jury investigating another Palestinian organization. He went on a hunger strike—dangerous for a diabetic. Finally federal Judge Leonie Brinkema ordered him released to the custody of his children while he was awaiting trial on the criminal contempt charges—which carry no limit on a possible prison term. Expressing concern that the Justice Department may have been less than straightforward in its dealings with Al-Arian, Brinkema said she would consider a motion for dismissal of the charges against him. In late April Brinkema said she would issue a decision “soon.”
One would have thought that, following the Florida jury’s decision, the bar would be so high that the prosecution would finally leave Al-Arian alone. But apparently there is a difference between a Palestinian patriot and Americans spying for Israel. One group has a powerful lobby in Washington, and the other has nothing, except the urging of that powerful lobby that the U.S. government go after any Palestinian activist with criminal charges or anything else it can get its hands on.
My question is this: Can anyone find the justice in the Justice Department?
James G. Abourezk is a former U.S. senator (D-SD) and founder of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. He currently practices law in Sioux Falls, SD.
