What to make of this,..... when newsmax is the source??

[annabanana]

I received this in an email, as part of a newsletter (that I DO NOT remember asking for)and I can't find a link for it at their website...

"America’s main pro-Israel lobby and two former employees charged with passing classified information are in a bitter dispute over who should pay the pair’s legal costs.

Steve Rosen, former director of foreign policy at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and Keith Weissman, who was the lobbying group’s Iran analyst, are considering suing AIPAC for withholding promised payments for legal costs.

The two are also weighing a defamation suit against AIPAC for accusing them of unbecoming conduct.

“There is a clear collision course here,” a former AIPAC staffer told the publication the Forward.

Rosen and Weissman are charged with communicating classified defense information they had received from former Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin to Israeli diplomats and journalists.

Franklin spoke of an Iranian plot to kill Americans and Israelis in Iraq, and said he relayed the information because he was “frustrated” with U.S. policy toward Iran and hoped to influence the administration, the Washington Post reported.

AIPAC hired attorney Abbe Lowell to represent Rosen, and John Nassikas to represent Weissman and signed a document declaring the organization would cover the legal costs, according to the Jerusalem Post.

But the two defendants were fired from AIPAC last spring, and their attorney fees have not been paid since then.

The hostility between the AIPAC leadership and the two former employees is expected to intensify when the pair goes on trial in April at the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va.

Defense attorneys will maintain that the two former employees were following the organization’s routine practice and that AIPAC’s top officials were fully aware of their actions.

“The evidence in this case will show that Dr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman always acted in AIPAC’s interests, never were on their own and acted with the knowledge and approval of their superiors,” attorney Lowell told the Forward.

AIPAC, on the other hand, maintains that Rosen and Weissman were fired in March due to “conduct that was not part of their job, and beneath the standards required of AIPAC employees,” said spokesman Patrick Dorton.

AIPAC’s bylaws require the organization to cover legal fees in a case such as this, except in certain cases including “gross negligence, bad faith, fraud” and “willful misconduct.”

The Jerusalem Post reports: “The dispute demonstrates the extent of mistrust between both sides, with AIPAC trying to distance itself from its former staffers and Rosen and Weissman claiming every action they took was done in accordance with their job requirements and was meant only for the benefit of AIPAC.” "

[papau]

1. Very old news - nothing to do with spying - only who pays for lawyers- and

the spying was a fellow wearing a wire from the US Gov telling another fellow "facts" in what appeared to be a standard White House back channel procedure. It will be interesting to see if it goes anywhere.

A search of DU should turn up the many threads on this.

[leveymg]

2. The MSM hasn't reported this case at all.

The follow-on prosecutions in the Larry Franklin OSP-AIPAC spy case were reconvened on January 3rd, but no paper has covered it. I did a quick GOOGLE two days ago, and found nothing.

Complete black-out in the US media.

[Roland99]

3. How many Israelis *are* there in Iraq?