washington | “This conversation doesn’t exist,” Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) allegedly told the person on the other end of the phone line in 2005. Now she wants everyone to know exactly what, if anything, she said in that call.
The California Jewish Democrat is in a fight for her political life after allegations surfaced this week that in 2005 she was overheard in a wiretap saying she would seek to reduce charges against two former AIPAC staffers accused of relaying classified leaks.
On April 21, she sent a letter expressing outrage to the U.S. attorney general and asking for the release of any tapes of classified conversations.
“Three anonymous sources, former national security officials, are selectively leaking portions of an alleged intercept about which I knew nothing,” Harman said.
The allegations are not new — accusations that Harman agreed to help the AIPAC officials in mid-to-late 2005 first surfaced just prior to the 2006 midterm elections, reportedly leaked by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, where Harman served as the ranking Democrat.
Which leaves the question, why now?
Congressional Quarterly, which broke the story this week, reported profound anger in the intelligence community at Harman for getting away with what they believe to be a major crime: conspiring to wield her influence in exchange for preserving political power.
Others have noted as possible factors the deep-seated antagonism between Harman and committee Republicans and between Harman and Porter Goss, the former CIA director who ordered the investigation opened against her.
In addition, Harman has had scrapes with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco. In 2005, Harman learned that Pelosi, then the minority leader, planned to remove her from the Intelligence Committee; Harman wanted to stay on in her role as senior Democrat. The fight intensified in 2006 as it became clear that Democrats would retake the House and Harman had a shot at the chair.
Then there is the imminence of the trial of the two former AIPAC staffers, due to start on June 2 after at least nine delays.
Harman says she was aware of the allegations against her, but never realized she had been recorded — inadvertently caught by National Security Agency eavesdroppers during an investigation, the New York Times reported.
The Congressional Quarterly story quotes national security officials as saying that Harman’s statements — one in particular at the end of the conversation, when she allegedly said that “this conversation doesn’t exist” before hanging up — were enough to establish a criminal case.
According to the security sources cited by Congressional Quarterly, the case against her hinged on an alleged quid pro quo: She would intervene on behalf of Steve Rosen, AIPAC’s former foreign policy chief, and Keith Weissman, its former Iran analyst.
In exchange, California billionaire Haim Saban, the Israeli American children’s entertainment magnate and a major contributor to AIPAC and the Democratic Party, would support her bid to become Intelligence Committee chairman. Saban, in a conversation with Pelosi, reportedly threatened to pull funding for Democrats unless Harman got the committee chairmanship.
Harman’s April 21 letter asking U.S. Attorney general Eric Holder to release the tapes undercut the quid pro quo theory.
“This abuse of power is outrageous and I call on your department to release all transcripts and other investigative material,” she wrote in the letter.
“Let me be absolutely clear: I never contacted the Department of Justice, the White House or anyone else to seek favorable treatment regarding national security cases on which I was briefed, or any other cases.”
She said she never made representations on behalf of Rosen and Weissman — accused of receiving and distributing closely held U.S. defense information.
The original leak about the alleged conversation came in October 2006.