Caught on Tape: Jane Harman & AIPAC

If even half of what’s alleged in this Congressional Quarterly report is true Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) and former attorney general Alberto Gonzales have a lot explaining to do:

Rep. Jane Harman , the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department to reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington.

Harman was recorded saying she would “waddle into” the AIPAC case “if you think it’ll make a difference,” according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript.

(Join Jeff Stein for a live online chat at 3:30 p.m. today about his story, or submit a question for Jeff.)

In exchange for Harman’s help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, which the Democrats were heavily favored to win.

Seemingly wary of what she had just agreed to, according to an official who read the NSA transcript, Harman hung up after saying, “This conversation doesn’t exist.”

Harman declined to discuss the wiretap allegations, instead issuing an angry denial through a spokesman.

“These claims are an outrageous and recycled canard, and have no basis in fact,” Harman said in a prepared statement. “I never engaged in any such activity. Those who are peddling these false accusations should be ashamed of themselves.”

It’s true that allegations of pro-Israel lobbyists trying to help Harman get the chairmanship of the intelligence panel by lobbying and raising money for Pelosi aren’t new.

They were widely reported in 2006, along with allegations that the FBI launched an investigation of Harman that was eventually dropped for a “lack of evidence.”

What is new is that Harman is said to have been picked up on a court-approved NSA tap directed at alleged Israel covert action operations in Washington.

And that, contrary to reports that the Harman investigation was dropped for “lack of evidence,” it was Alberto R. Gonzales, President Bush’s top counsel and then attorney general, who intervened to stop the Harman probe.

This stinks to high heaven, not simply because of allegations against Rep. Harman and former AG Gonzales, but because of the unprecedented leak of an NSA wiretap.

That said there’s something fishy about this leak, NSA wiretaps are among the closely guarded, highly secret operations carried out by the federal Government. Even during the Bush years while various elements within the government were conducting a stealth campaign against the Administration’s War on terror policy’s via politically damaging leaks to the New York Times, no NSA wiretaps were released… I can’t help but think whoever leaked this transcript has an agenda and that is some sort of political payback.

Related

• Kos calls on Harman to resign – The Hill Briefing Room Blog
• Harman caught on wiretap bargaining for intervention in espionage case – Hot Air
• A Rahm Bomb for Jane Harman? – American Thinker
• The Harman-AIPAC wiretaps – Michelle Malkin