Grant Smith has long argued that AIPAC should have to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Well here is a snippet from Smith’s eyebrow-raising report on depositions in the 2009 lawsuit against AIPAC by former staffer Steve Rosen. You’ll remember that Rosen was indicted in 2005 by the Justice Department under the Espionage Act– a case that the government has since dropped– and that Rosen is suing AIPAC for millions because he felt that the lobby defamed him and hung him out to dry.
The case involved classified information Rosen got from Defense Department analyst Larry Franklin in 2004 (that Iranian agents were going to undertake attacks against American soldiers and Israeli agents in Iraq). Note that Rosen seems most alarmed that the FBI indicated that it knew Franklin had also passed this info on to the Israelis– another Jonathan Pollard case in the making.
Before I get to the Smith excerpt, note that the Forward has picked up the story and is playing up the revelation that many in AIPAC watched porn, and then there is this from MJ Rosenberg:
Former AIPAC staffer and now liberal columnist M.J. Rosenberg [says] …if Rosen proves that his operations, including going to a foreign official to warn him about the investigation, were all part of AIPAC’s standard operating procedures, “that would mean that AIPAC is not a domestic lobbying organization at all, but something very, very different.”
Now here is Grant Smith:
Rosen detailed his [August 2004] doorstep confrontation with the FBI followed by rushed consultations with the Israelis.
Rosen: “They [the FBI] were accusatory toward me. They were accusatory toward the government of Israel. They were accusatory toward AIPAC.”
[AIPAC attorney Thomas] McCally: “And tell me how they were accusatory.”
Rosen:
“They said that they had a recording of [Lawrence] Franklin giving a classified document to an Israeli government official. That was the most serious accusation. It’s true, it wasn’t about me or AIPAC. But it was the most serious accusation. They said they had reason to think I was lying when I told them that I did not receive classified information from Franklin, or that I didn’t know of somebody who received – I don’t remember the word formulation. They said that I better get a lawyer by 10:00 a.m….
Rosen: “I called [AIPAC general counsel] Phil Friedman.”
McCally: “Was he first?”
Rosen: “I believe – I don’t know. I believe I tried to call [AIPAC executive director] Howard Kohr. But I somehow didn’t get through or something….I called Rafi Barak, the deputy chief, the number two, like deputy ambassador, they call it deputy chief of mission, of the embassy of Israel. …
McCally: “You called Rafi Barak, deputy chief mission for the embassy?”
Rosen: “Yes, the number two official of the embassy.”
McCally: “What did you discuss with him?”
Rosen: “I told him I had to see him right away. And he said, I can’t, I’m going to a meeting. I said, no, you’re not. I said, this is extremely serious, I have to see you right away. And he said, okay, okay, I’ll meet you at Bread & Chocolate, which is a place we usually met for breakfast, often on Fridays, which this was.”
