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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/37857/full/37857/congresswoman-denies-pulling-strings-in-aipac-case/ <br /><br /> <b>Congresswoman denies pulling strings in AIPAC case</b> <br /> Thursday, April 23, 2009 | by ron kampeas <br /><br /><p><strong>washington  |</strong>  “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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>“Three anonymous sources, former national security officials, are selectively leaking portions of an alleged intercept about which I knew nothing,” Harman said.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>Which leaves the question, why now?</p> <p> <div class="capDivLeft" style="width: 360px;"><img alt="USjta harman" class="left" height="309" src="http://dev.jweekly.com/images/uploads/z_photos_2009/zh_04_24_09/USjta harman.jpg" title="Rep. Jane Harman at a Center for American Progress event. photo/jta/center for american progress" width="360" /> <div class="caption">Rep. Jane Harman at a Center for American Progress event. photo/jta/center for american progress</div> </div> 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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>Harman’s April 21 letter asking U.S. Attorney general Eric Holder to release the tapes undercut the quid pro quo theory.</p> <p>“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.</p> <p>“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.”</p> <p>She said she never made representations on behalf of Rosen and Weissman — accused of receiving and distributing closely held U.S. defense information.</p> <p>The original leak about the alleged conversation came in October 2006.</p>

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