megimoo
04-20-2009, 06:42 PM
Report: Lawmaker Caught up in Spy Probe
Reports from 2006 about the investigation into Harman noted the probe was dropped “for lack of evidence.” But such claims are “bull****,” one source told CQ’s Stein. “I read those transcripts,” the former national security official said.
It sounds more like a Washington thriller than a news report: an NSA probe catches a congresswoman scheming with a suspected Israeli spy, but she's shielded from prosecution by the U.S. Attorney General, who says his administration "needs" her in place to defend the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program.
But that’s exactly what happened, according to sources interviewed by Congressional Quarterly’s Jeff Stein. In 2006, the NSA informed the Justice Department it had caught Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), then the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, offering to lobby the Justice Department to soften espionage-related charges against two pro-Israel lobbyists in exchange for lobbying help to make her chair of the intelligence committee.
Officials familiar with the matter told Stein the Feds had Harman spot on with the court-approved intelligence wiretap -- but then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales stopped the probe, saying he "needed Jane" to keep support up for the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program, which she had vocally defended in the past.
Harman today denied the CQ report, saying it "recycles three year-old discredited reporting of largely unsourced material to manufacture a ‘scoop'. . .
"If there is anything about this story that should arouse concern, it is that the Bush Administration may have been engaged in electronic surveillance of members of the congressional Intelligence Committees," Harman said.
Reports from 2006 about the investigation into Harman noted the probe was dropped “for lack of evidence.” But such claims are “bull****,” one source told CQ’s Stein. “I read those transcripts,” the former national security official said.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/roodfromdc/2009/04/report-lawmaker.html
Reports from 2006 about the investigation into Harman noted the probe was dropped “for lack of evidence.” But such claims are “bull****,” one source told CQ’s Stein. “I read those transcripts,” the former national security official said.
It sounds more like a Washington thriller than a news report: an NSA probe catches a congresswoman scheming with a suspected Israeli spy, but she's shielded from prosecution by the U.S. Attorney General, who says his administration "needs" her in place to defend the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program.
But that’s exactly what happened, according to sources interviewed by Congressional Quarterly’s Jeff Stein. In 2006, the NSA informed the Justice Department it had caught Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), then the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, offering to lobby the Justice Department to soften espionage-related charges against two pro-Israel lobbyists in exchange for lobbying help to make her chair of the intelligence committee.
Officials familiar with the matter told Stein the Feds had Harman spot on with the court-approved intelligence wiretap -- but then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales stopped the probe, saying he "needed Jane" to keep support up for the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program, which she had vocally defended in the past.
Harman today denied the CQ report, saying it "recycles three year-old discredited reporting of largely unsourced material to manufacture a ‘scoop'. . .
"If there is anything about this story that should arouse concern, it is that the Bush Administration may have been engaged in electronic surveillance of members of the congressional Intelligence Committees," Harman said.
Reports from 2006 about the investigation into Harman noted the probe was dropped “for lack of evidence.” But such claims are “bull****,” one source told CQ’s Stein. “I read those transcripts,” the former national security official said.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/roodfromdc/2009/04/report-lawmaker.html