washington | Top officials at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee have appeared before a grand jury and two senior staffers have been placed on paid leave — the latest developments in the federal investigation of the pro-Israel lobby for allegedly passing classified information to Israel.
At the same time, the Pentagon staff member at the center of the allegations — accused of spying by the FBI and then being pressured into an alleged FBI “sting” against AIPAC — has been quietly rehired by the Pentagon, over the FBI’s objections.
Multiple sources close to the investigation said they do not foresee an imminent resolution before AIPAC’s annual policy conference, which begins May 22.
The investigation came to light last August when the FBI raided AIPAC’s Washington headquarters. Files belonging to two senior staffers, policy director Steve Rosen and Iran specialist Keith Weissman, were confiscated.
News of the raid was leaked to CBS News as it was happening, igniting worldwide media coverage and speculation about a “nest of Pollardites,” a reference to Jonathan Pollard, the American Jewish naval analyst who was convicted of spying for Israel in 1986.
Allegations soon surfaced that Rosen and Weissman had accepted classified information on Iran from Larry Franklin, an Iran analyst for the Pentagon, in 2003.
The FBI launched another raid on AIPAC headquarters in December 2004. It also issued grand jury subpoenas to four top staffers: Howard Kohr, the group’s executive director; Richard Fishman, the managing director; Renee Rothstein, the communications director; and Raphael Danziger, the research director.
Sources say in late January or early February some of them testified before the grand jury. AIPAC would not comment on the proceedings of the grand jury, which was convened by Paul McNulty, the federal prosecutor in eastern Virginia.
Rosen and Weissman were placed on paid leave in January. At around the same time, Franklin returned to the Pentagon in a “nonsensitive position,” sources said.
Franklin, who had been threatened with an espionage indictment by FBI Assistant Director David Szady’s counterintelligence division, was pressured into acting as an FBI informant against AIPAC, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the FBI’s tactics against Franklin. In an earlier case involving a CIA staff attorney, Szady had been publicly accused of targeting Jews with security investigations.
“I think that shows that Franklin was never any sort of espionage threat,” a source close to Franklin said. Franklin has been described as overeager but intensely patriotic.
“Franklin was obviously more of a victim than a threat,” said one source intimately familiar with the government’s case against Franklin.
Szady told a contact that Franklin’s rehiring by the Pentagon was not “our call,” and was done over the FBI’s strenuous objections. An FBI spokesman refused to comment on the rehiring.
Franklin has not been called to testify before the grand jury, nor have there been significant discussions or even contacts about a plea or a resolution, according to sources familiar with the Justice Department’s case against Franklin.