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Last update - 02:06 02/05/2009
U.S. drops spy charges against two ex-AIPAC officials
By The Associated Press
Tags: Steven Rosen, Israel News 

Federal prosecutors moved Friday to dismiss espionage-related charges against two former pro-Israel lobbyists accused of disclosing classified U.S. defense information, ending a tortuous inside-the-Beltway legal battle rife with national security intrigue.

Critics of the prosecution of Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee accused the federal government of trying to criminalize the sort of back-channel discussions between government officials, lobbyists and reporters that are commonplace in the nation's capital. AIPAC is an influential pro-Israel lobbying group.

Acting U.S. Attorney Dana Boente said the government moved to dismiss the charges in the drawn-out case after concluding that pretrial rulings would make it too difficult for the government to prove its case.
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Boente also said he was worried that classified information would be disclosed at trial.

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III had made several legal rulings that prosecutors worried would make it almost impossible to obtain a guilty verdict. Among them was a requirement that the government would have to prove that Rosen and Weissman knew they were harming the United States by trading in sensitive national defense information.

The defense had also been prepared to put on a strong case that the information obtained by Rosen and Weissman, while technically classified, was not truly secret and that its disclosure was irrelevant to the nation's security.

The federal government's former arbiter of classification, J. William Leonard, was prepared to testify for the defense that the government overuses classification and applies the label to information that by any practical measure does not need to be secret. The government had sought to bar Leonard's testimony.

The trial had been scheduled to start June 2 in a case first brought in 2005.

Rosen and Weissman had not been charged with actual espionage, although the charges did fall under provisions of the 1917 Espionage Act, a rarely used World War I-era law that had never before been applied to lobbyists.

Weissman's lawyer, Baruch Weiss, called the dismissal a "huge victory for the First Amendment." Had Rosen and Weissman been convicted, he said it would have set a precedent for prosecuting reporters any time they obtained information from government officials that was later deemed too sensitive to be disclosed.

While Weissman was overjoyed to learn the charges will be dismissed, Weiss said that the four-year prosecution "has been a tremendous hardship for both Rosen and Weissman," who have been unable to work while the charges have hung over their head and they faced the prospect of a lengthy jail term.

A former Defense Department official, Lawrence A. Franklin, previously pleaded guilty to providing Rosen and Weissman classified defense information and was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison.

Had the case gone to trial, Rosen and Weissman had won the right to subpoena former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other top Bush administration officials. The defense believed their testimony would support the claim that the United States regularly uses AIPAC to send back-channel communications to Israel. Prosecutors had sought unsuccessfully to quash the subpoenas.

The indictment had alleged that Rosen and Weissman conspired to obtain and then disclosed classified information on U.S. policy toward Iran, as well as information on the al-Qaida terror network and the bombing of the Khobar Towers dormitory in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 U.S. Air Force personnel.

It will be up to Ellis to formally dismiss the charges, but it would be highly unlikely that he would refuse the government's request for dismissal.

The government's decision won praise from the American Jewish Committee.

"The Department of Justice has now reaffirmed that the law of the United States protects citizens who engage in the everyday and essential work of political advocacy," said AJC Executive Director David Harris.

Related articles:
  • U.S. Congresswoman denies interceding in AIPAC spy case
  • Ex-AIPAC lobbyists win court ruling in U.S. espionage case
  • Defense for AIPAC spy suspects: Data at core of case was not really 'top secret'
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      1.   prediction 18:40  |  potobac 01/05/09
      2.   Politics at work 18:45  |  Mark Lincoln 01/05/09
      3.   U.S Drops Charges 18:50  |  Steve Gure 01/05/09
      4.   Right thing to do 19:21  |  Baruch Gold 01/05/09
      5.   never plead guilty - ever 20:41  |  mitch 01/05/09
      6.   pollard go free? 20:43  |  Lee 01/05/09
      7.   re: baruch 20:53  |  albert 01/05/09
      8.   Yipee! 20:54  |  4:20 01/05/09
      9.   US justice - innocent until proven guilty- Mark Lincoln justice 21:03  |  Jacob Blues 01/05/09
      10.   Albert 21:34  |  David 01/05/09
      11.   - 21:58  |  - 01/05/09
      12.   Much ado about nothing 22:01  |  Yonatan 01/05/09
      13.   I see the anti-semites are out in force 22:32  |  Gee 01/05/09
      14.   Very Pollard Like Support 22:36  |  Torrance 01/05/09
      15.   Re Mark Linclon 22:41  |  Uzi Duzzit 01/05/09
      16.   The Charges dropped. 23:05  |  WHG 01/05/09
      17.   # 2 Mark Lincoln...it would also involve the US 23:13  |  Lynn 01/05/09
      18.   #1 Potobac, you are wrong stating that 00:41  |  Israeli observer 02/05/09
      19.   #1 - potobac 01:07  |  MichaelF 02/05/09
      20.   #7 - albert 01:13  |  MichaelF 02/05/09
      21.   No surprise with dissmal but what is surprising 01:18  |  Joe 02/05/09
      22.   #2 Lincoln - you defame a worthy name 01:58  |  *BEN JABO 02/05/09
      23.   Bernie Madoff 03:15  |  Le Corbeau 02/05/09
      24.   AIPAC 03:46  |  Ed 02/05/09
      25.   Well, THIS bit certainly explains something... 05:55  |  Johnboy 02/05/09
      26.   AIPAC 05:58  |  Dee 02/05/09
      27.   israeli observer 18 05:58  |  potobac 02/05/09
      28.   michael f 19 06:08  |  potobac 02/05/09
      29.   ben jabo 22 06:27  |  POTOBAC 02/05/09
      30.   #2, Mark Lincoln 07:55  |  Cipora Julianna Kohn 02/05/09
      31.   #1 potobac rows up river and gets it wrong again 08:37  |  v hardman 02/05/09
      32.   # 27,28,39 PoToBaC 12:53  |  The Teacher/Instruct 02/05/09
      33.   No Problem here, Both sides share the same enemy 15:10  |  Mongo 02/05/09
      34.   We Have Seen These Overzealous Prosecutors 18:08  |  Eli 02/05/09
      35.   teacher/instructor 19:21  |  potobac 02/05/09
      36.   Running RIGHT around in circles 20:43  |  Mark Lincoln 02/05/09
      37.   This was a calculated attempt to muzzle Jews politically 21:15  |  IW 02/05/09
      38.   Israel and US friendship 21:50  |  Marty 02/05/09
      39.   #34 Eli 23:11  |  albert 02/05/09
      40.   # 26 potobac 00:19  |  The Teacher/Instruct 03/05/09
      41.   IW, for instance! 00:34  |  WHG 03/05/09
      42.   IW, they were and are not innocent... 04:06  |  BBSNews 03/05/09
      43.   Ben Jabo, you defame the Jewish diaspora... 05:20  |  BBSNews 03/05/09
      44.   Number 30, PsyCocia Julliana Kohn 05:31  |  Mark Lincoln 03/05/09
      45.   #39, Mark Lincoln 08:29  |  Cipora Julianna Kohn 03/05/09
      46.   observer 37 09:38  |  potobac 03/05/09
      47.   # 43 putbac 15:59  |  The Teacher/Instruct 03/05/09
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