Oh, yeah, the other Bush administration spy scandal...
State of the State Secrets
Larry Franklin wanted to sway policy, not just spill intel.
by Justin Raimondo
(...)
In December 2001, Franklin, along with Harold Rhode, a Middle East expert and Franklin’s colleague in Feith’s policy shop, and neoconservative writer Michael Ledeen—at the time working for Feith as a consultant—met with the infamous Manucher Ghorbanifar, of Iran-Contra fame, and a group of Iranians, including a former high official of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Also in attendance: Nicolo Pollari, head of the Italian intelligence service, and Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino. As writer Laura Rozen tells it, “Ghorbanifar told me he has had fifty meetings with Michael Ledeen since September 11th, and that he has given Ledeen ‘4,000 to 5,000 pages of sensitive documents’ concerning Iran, Iraq and the Middle East, ‘material no one else has received.’”
(...)
When the FBI confronted Franklin and searched his home and office—turning up 83 classified documents, spanning three decades—he agreed, at first, to help the investigation, presumably in return for a promise of leniency. By some accounts, notably those by pro-AIPAC writer Edwin Black, Franklin agreed to make a series of monitored phone calls to suspects in the investigation, including neoconservative supporters of Chalabi. They also supposedly planted information via Franklin that Israeli agents operating in the Kurdish area of northern Iraq were in danger of assassination by Iranian agents. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that Franklin met with Weissman on July 21, 2004 outside Nordstrom’s at the Pentagon City mall in Arlington and warned him about Israel’s Kurdish problem. Alarmed, Weissman and Rosen passed this on to AIPAC, which raised the matter in meetings with NSC official Eliot Abrams. They also called Naor Gilon, top political officer at the Israeli embassy. This was followed shortly afterward by the FBI’s first raid on AIPAC’s Washington headquarters. (They would return four months later.)
Whoever leaked details of the case to CBS News, including Franklin’s identity, nixed the FBI’s efforts to trace the transfer of sensitive materials from the spy nest embedded in our government to Israeli officials. FBI officials were furious: the leaker had effectively sabotaged their investigation, at least for the moment. Franklin stopped co-operating with the authorities, dismissed his court-appointed lawyer, and hired the high-priced law firm of Plato Cacheris.
The recent kickstarting of the prosecution, however, has seen a sea change in AIPAC’s defense strategy. Rosen and Weissman have been handed their walking papers, and AIPAC is backpedaling furiously on its previous statements denying any wrongdoing by its employees, although the group is still paying the duo’s legal bills. JTA reports indicate they are both to be indicted shortly, and Rosen anticipates the trial may begin as early as January 2006. He has pledged to fight the charges.
When this case comes to trial, it won’t be only three spies for Israel who stand accused: the whole nexus of organizations and interests that came together in the War Party will be put in the dock.
(...)
Maybe it's just me, but it seems like the Rove/Libby scandal is related to the Franklin scandal.
In particular, I'm curious about the reference to 'the recent kickstarting of the prosecution.' That suggests new information has been uncovered. Can anyone provide more information about that?
Also, Abrams and Ledeen have been mentioned tangentially in the Rove/Libby scandal (I think Abrams may be the 3rd official referred to by Cooper, for example, and Ledeen has serious Italian contacts that may have generated the Niger uranium document.) Is there a direct connection between these two investigations (Franklin, Rove/Libby)? People keep referring to "bigger fish" that Fitzgerald is after. I'm wondering if the Cooper/Miller judge's redacted material relates to this AIPAC intelligence pipeline. Any thoughts? Hope I'm making a little bit of sense, at least....
BTW, this is an excellent primer on the Franklin spy case, and I highly recommend it, even if it is from the American Conservative.
http://www.amconmag.com/2005_06_06/feature.html It also mentions that "America’s grand democratization project in the Middle East" is "the Special Relations Initiative of 2005” between the US and Israel...
Edit: Here's another piece of data that maybe supports my theory. From
http://politerra.com/images/Iraqchronologyrawstory.pdf
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