Rosen claimed somewhat ominously that passing classified information obtained from government contacts was business as usual in Washington.
He asked that high level witnesses including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, former Defense Department officials Paul D. Wolfowitz and Douglas J. Feith, and Richard L. Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state all be called on to testify that confidential information was frequently given to AIPAC for discreet passage to the Israeli Embassy.
– Philip Giraldi
Reports of surfing porn sites and frequenting prostitutes is not what one expects to read regarding the leadership of Washington’s most powerful foreign policy lobby.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is embroiled in a court battle with its former Director of Foreign Policy Issues Steven Rosen, who is claiming that AIPAC first unfairly fired then slandered and libeled him, publicly denouncing him for not exhibiting “the conduct that AIPAC expects from its employees.” He is seeking total damages of $20 million.
AIPAC has successfully limited the case to the defamation charge, fearing that it would spill over into other areas, but attempts to have the entire suit dismissed have so far been unsuccessful.
Defeat for AIPAC could have major consequences beyond a sudden shortage of donors, including increasing demands for the group to register as a foreign lobby and even criminal charges relating to the passage of classified information to Israel, an offense under the Espionage Act. Some have even predicted that the trial could spin out of control, with proliferating charges and counter-charges leading to the effective dismantling of AIPAC.
The betting is that Rosen might well be willing to accept an out of court settlement of most of the money he is seeking to make the suit go away and limit the damage to his former employer, but there are also reports that the exchanges have become so poisonous that reconciliation is impossible. AIPAC appears poised to try to discredit Rosen completely and is gathering a defense fund of between $5 and $10 million in an attempt to salvage its reputation among the well heeled Jewish donors who have up until recently provided its annual $70 million budget.
Rosen and his AIPAC colleague Keith Weissman were charged under the Espionage Act in 2003, after the FBI made the case that they had obtained classified information from Pentagon employee Larry Franklin and passed it on to Israeli diplomats and to journalist Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post.
In 2005, the two men were fired by AIPAC in spite of initial pledges of support. The trial, sometimes referred to as AIPACgate, dragged on until May 1, 2009, when it was finally dismissed after the government could not make its case due to adverse decisions by the presiding Judge T. S. Ellis, possibly acting under pressure from the White House to end the proceedings.
At the time, as the centerpiece of his defense, Rosen claimed somewhat ominously that passing classified information obtained from government contacts was business as usual in Washington. He asked that high level witnesses including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, former Defense Department officials Paul D. Wolfowitz and Douglas J. Feith, and Richard L. Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state all be called on to testify that confidential information was frequently given to AIPAC for discreet passage to the Israeli Embassy.
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