Justin Elliott at TPM has an interesting piece on the latest developments in the Stewart Nozette spying case, that the prosecutor said in court that Nozette had admitted to an FBI agent that he had passed classified info to Israel in the past. Mark Wauck interpolates:
1. Elliott expresses surprise: "the prosecutor made a fairly extraordinary claim in court yesterday, seemingly without backing it up."
What the prosecutor said was: Nozette made an admission to "the agent." Now, i’m here to tell you that there is no way in a case like this that one agent was speaking to Nozette one on one. There had to have been another agent, to corroborate the admission. If that admission was made it was written down contemporaeously and if it’s used in court the other agent will corroborate. But this sort of thing isn’t unusual–people talk to agents, even when it’s against their legal interests. there’s really nothing extraordinary in this. People do things that are (from a legal standpoint) dumb, all the time. Like getting involved in espionage in the first place. bound to screw up your life. The government is probably checking around to see if there’s any way they can confirm Nozette’s admission independently–if they can’t, then they probably can’t bring a charge based solely on what he said. And of course there has been no charge brought. The complaint was drawn up already before the arrest and before they had a chance to talk to Nozette. These things take time.
2. A good reporter, Elliott called the Israelis. "Israeli Embassy tells me, improbably, they’re not familiar enough with the case to comment."
Again, no surprise. Why should the Embassy be familiar with the case? Assuming for the sake of argument that the aerospace company was engaged in intelligence gathering (as has been claimed), they would probably avoid contact with the Embassy under the assumption that the FBI would be keeping an eye on the embassy (if the FBI tthought there were undercover Mossad people at the embassy) and they wouldn’t want to attract attention to themselves–act like a business and nothing else. Whoever in Israel was running the operation would almost certainly say: what need is there for extra people at the embassy to know about this? The more people there are who know about it, the more chances that some indiscrete remark will be dropped and the thing will be blown. wouldn’t you act the same way, following that line of reasoning?
if the FBI thought there were undercover Mossad people at the embassy….Whoever in Israel was running the operation would almost certainly say: what need is there for extra people at the embassy to know about this? The more people there are who know about it, the more chances that some indiscreet remark will be dropped and the thing will be blown. wouldn’t you act the same way, following that line of reasoning?
Mark, it is standard practice to never comment on such cases. Even if the embassy spokesperson or public and media relations desk knew about this case and all the details involved, they wouldn’t tell the media.
If you’re looking for a good book on matters of this type, you might want to try Victor Ostrovsky’s By Way of Deception and The Other Side of Deception. They’re both good reads.
Zionism! It’s not just a national secret threat to Palestinians anymore (or Europeans — remember Operation Wrath of God — or any countries with Muslim majority populations).
Of course anybody who cares about the USS Liberty knew that quite a while ago.
Nolan, I understand what’s standard practice for diplomats, and I also understand what’s standard practice for intelligence services. “Need to know” is the operative principle for all intelligence services, and that rarely includes briefing even ambassadors on the details of intelligence operations. While there have been exceptions, they have been few: normally, the diplomatic service is eager to maintain deniability. The point is, beyond the Israeli Embassy’s pro forma denial–after all, if a diplomat admits knowledge of this kind of thing or he’ll be identifying himself as complicit in espionage–there’s ample reason to believe that Israeli intelligence would never have considered briefing the diplomats anyway, for sound operational reasons.
Let me expand slightly.
It’s common practice for intelligence services to have their operatives stationed abroad at diplomatic establishments (embassies, consulates) under “diplomatic cover,” i.e., occupying an official diplomatic position but carrying out intelligence functions. The benefit is that such officials operate under diplomatic immunity–if caught in activities incompatible with their diplomatic position (like espionage), they are usually expelled as persona non grata, persons who are no longer welcome in the host country, but they are not prosecuted. Their agents, of course, are prosecuted. Importantly, however, the most senior diplomatic positions are usually, repeat, usually reserved for actual career diplomats. Of course these career diplomats know that some of their officials may be undercover intelligence operatives, and may have a pretty shrewd idea of their identities, but they would not normally know the details of their operations, and certainly not the identities of any agents they might be running. The ambassador can therefore quite truthfully deny any knowledge of the operation and will only repeat what his government instructs him to say. For an ambassador to be implicated in espionage and declared persona non grata would be an extremely serious matter for relations between the two governments, and I’m sure Israel, like all other governments, takes measures to insulate its ambassadors from such a possibility.
On the other hand, intelligence officials stationed at a government owned business abroad (such as the Israeli owned aerospace company that Nozette consulted for) would not have diplomatic cover and therefore would not have diplomatic immunity. If caught they are subject to arrest and prosecution under the laws of the host country, along with their agents. While this scenario is riskier for the intelligence operatives, the benefit is that, if their country has set up a variety of such companies, it may be far more difficult for the host country’s counterintelligence service to monitor their activities, in comparison with a setup in which all intelligence activity is conducted out of the embassy.
Nozette’s taped statements to the FBI indicate that he thought he was involved in just such a situation as this–he believed the company he was consulting for was a “front” for Israeli intelligence. However, the FBI doesn’t appear at this point to have hard evidence that Nozette’s impression was in fact the case. Alternatively, they may have such evidence but, for various reasons, may be unwilling to publicly reveal the extent of their knowledge, as they would have to do at a trial. If that is the case, the charges against Nozette may be tailored to prevent sensitive techniques or intelligence information from being revealed.
In such a scenario, for the intelligence operatives at a commercial enterprise to be in regular contact with the embassy without a clear reason might well be considered a red flag by the host country’s counterintelligence service, drawing unwelcome attention to the operatives, since logically they should be involved full time with business activities, not chatting up diplomats of any country. Therefore, it is logical to assume that the Israeli embassy would have had little to no actual knowledge of intelligence activities being conducted by the aerospace company.
Excellent background, thanks, Mark. Since you know tradecraft, I have a question about the AIPAC spy case. Why would two senior AIPAC officials be used to pass classified documents? Why not use one of the more humble “sayanim” in the DC area: they must have dentists, bookstore owners, etc. Were they just that brazen, or was something else going on?
America First, IMO, the key to understanding the AIPAC case is that AIPAC has been able to avoid being classed as an agent of a foreign power, under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA), despite general agreement in US Government circles that AIPAC is precisely that. Look up the provisions of FARA if you want a clear understanding of the issues. Being an agent of a foreign power is not necessarily a nefarious thing, per se, but classification as such does put the world on notice that the agent’s actions are undertaken for the benefit of a foreign power, not for the benefit of the US. And in fairness to Israel and the Israeli lobby, there are other organizations that act in the interests of other foreign powers than Israel which have managed to evade classification under FARA through political clout. However, AIPAC has unquestionably served as a template for foreign governments wishing to influence US policy through their emigre populations in the US.
As it is, AIPAC is able to operate just like any other lobbying organization, and no politician or government employee can be said to be on notice that when they deal with AIPAC representatives they are dealing with the agent of a foreign power. That means, as a practical matter, that prosecutors have a much harder time proving a case because they run up against, in essence, a first amendment defense: AIPAC and those who deal with AIPAC are said to be just American citizens sharing information, just as government officials and politicians share and leak with newspapers. If prosecutors try to claim that AIPAC is, in fact, an agent of a foreign power, the ready riposte is: then why didn’t you require AIPAC to register under FARA? By failing in your responsibilities to enforce the law you allowed these innocents like Larry Franklin to blunder into a relationship with AIPAC all unawares that they were dealing with an agent of a foreign power! Are the prosecutors supposed to say: we couldn’t because the Israeli Lobby is too strong for us, the US Government? They’d be laughed out of court, and the fact that the US Government had failed to act would be accepted as conclusive that AIPAC is not an agent of a foreign power. The result is that the facts become very murky, indeed, at least for purposes of proving a criminal violation beyond a reasonable doubt. And that’s all a defense lawyer wants to do–raise a doubt that seems reasonable to at least one member of a jury, or better yet, intimidate prosecutors from even bringing such a case because of the likely prospect of putting in a lot of work, taking a lot of abuse, and losing. Prosecutors are human, too, and aren’t eager to be sent on what looks like a fools errand.
So, from this, you can see the attractiveness of using as agents the members of an organization that is under political protection, in a setting in which the legal background hampers successful prosecution.
Murky indeed! The wilderness of mirrors remains…
American First, one last note: as you can see, these are ultimately not law enforcement or intelligence issues but political issues. That is, they can only be satisfactorily resolved by political action, by the will or politicians to enforce the laws of the land. It shouldn’t be news that politicians can prevent what appear to be clear provisions of laws from being applied to organizations that they have reason to protect or favor. And the reasons for that usually come down to money or votes, or a combination of the two. Public opinion is usually a threat against those two: potential loss of contributions or political support in the form of votes or campaign workers. Hey–this is America!
Here’s an article–actually, an interview–that is quite long but deals with some of these issues from a different angle, that is, mostly not from a legal angle. Be patient reading it, because you’ll be rewarded with useful perspectives:
FBI Whistleblower Names Names: Scott Horton interviews Sibel Edmonds and John M. Cole, November 02, 2009
Mark – thanks for your informed insights.