Ex-AIPACer Suing Former Employer for Defamation

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"Steve Rosen, the former AIPAC foreign policy chief charged with receiving classified information, is suing his former employer for defamation, JTA has learned.

Rosen filed a civil action March 2 in the District of Columbia Superior Court seeking $21 million from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, its officers at the time of his dismissal in 2005 and an outside spokesman hired to deal specifically with the case.

Should it come to trial, the civil case promises revelations of how AIPAC works its sensitive relations with the executive branch and allegedly capitulated to government pressure to fire Rosen and Keith Weissman, its then-Iran analyst.

Weissman, Rosen’s co-defendant in the criminal case under way in a federal court in Alexandria, Va., is not a plaintiff in the civil suit. He and his lawyers declined comment, as did Rosen.

Both of Rosen’s lawyers—in the criminal case and in his suit against AIPAC—did not return calls requesting comment.

The core of the case is the repeated claims by Patrick Dorton, the outside spokesman for AIPAC named in the suit, that Rosen and Weissman were fired because they “did not comport with standards that AIPAC expects of all its employees.”

AIPAC’s regular spokesman, Joshua Block, referred questions to Dorton. In turn, Dorton issued a statement saying that AIPAC and the others named in Rosen’s suit would defend themselves vigorously.

"The complaint paints a false picture of what happened,“ he told JTA, adding later that “AIPAC made all decisions in this situation with a determination to do the right thing."

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[Howardx]

1. oh man

that will be a show. by all means tear each other apart.

[Jefferson23]

2. Will be interesting to see if this gets settled very quickly.

[bemildred]

3. Oh Damn!

:popcorn::popcorn:

[TomClash]

7. You need a beer with this one!

:beer:

[Scurrilous]

4. Washington Post: Drop AIPAC staffers’ case

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"The Washington Post is urging the Justice Department to drop its prosecution of two former AIPAC staffers.

In an editorial Wednesday, the paper said the indictment of Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman is "a criminal case that should never have been brought." The two were charged with passing classified information under a rarely used section of the 1917 Espionage Act.

"The government has the right to demand strict confidentiality from government officials and others who swear to protect its secrets," the Post wrote. "The Justice Department errs egregiously and risks profound damage to the First Amendment, however, when it insists that private citizens -- academics, journalists, think tank analysts, lobbyists and the like -- also are legally bound to keep the nation's secrets. The prosecution in effect criminalizes the exchange of information."

The editorial also noted that recent court rulings have provided "exceedingly high hurdles" for the prosecution to clear in making its case, pointing out that the government now "must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants passed along information they knew to be closely held by the government, that they did so knowing it could damage national security and that they acted in bad faith."

http://jta.org/news/article/2009/03/11/1003619/wash-post-drop-aipac-case


Time to Call It Quits

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/10/AR2009031003026.html

[bemildred]

5. Giving classified information to people with no clearance is a crime too.

Either they had a clearance, and violated their oath, or they did not, and they guys that gave the information to them violated their oath. Where is all the blather about preventing "leaks" when you really need it?

[TomClash]

8. I guess that "Back Channel" defense isn't so strong nt

[IndianaGreen]

11. I suppose the WaPo also wants convicted spy Jonathan Pollard released with apologies

The WaPo is going down the toilet!

[TomClash]

6. LOL - The Spy We Didn't Love

:beer: :popcorn:

[Scurrilous]

9. 'Wa Po' urges dismissal of AIPAC espionage case, asks for counter-argument, and rejects same

<snip>

"The other day the Washington Post editorial page--which I am harping on because it has been on the pro-neocon track at least since declaring that the Iraq war was "essential to American security"-- ran an editorial urging the Justice Department to drop the "misguided" espionage case against former AIPAC staffers Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman.

The editorial was followed by this statement: "Do you have a different view of this issue? Debate a member of the editorial board in the Editorial Judgment discussion group."

Grant Smith does have a different view. He is the director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy and a sharp critic of the Israel lobby. I like Smith because he has shown that back in the early '60s AIPAC's predecessor organization, the American Zionist Council, was being pursued by the Kennedy Justice Department to register under the Foreign Agents registration act. The lobbyists knew that having to register as foreign agents would hurt the effort to maintain Israel's necessary support from the superpower. So AIPAC was started, and it has always escaped such designation.

Smith, a lucid and forceful writer, put together an Op-Ed on the Rosen/Weissman case urging that it not be dropped. It was of course rejected by the Post. Wrote an editorial aide, "Dear Mr. Smith, Thank you for your recent op-ed submission. The column was carefully reviewed, but unfortunately The Post is not able to publish this piece."

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/03/washington-post-urges-dismissal-of-aipac-espionage-case-asks-for-counterargument-and-promptly-reject.html

[bemildred]

10. WaPo be-shits itself again. nt

[Scurrilous]

12. Freeman affair sheds sunshine on ‘night flower’ Steve Rosen

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"The night flower is back, and he's liking the light.

Steve Rosen, the former AIPAC foreign policy chief, is at the center of Middle East policy attention nearly four years after his indictment on charges of handling classified information. He wrote a blog post highlighting past controversial statements by Charles “Chas” Freeman, the putative chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Rosen then alerted reporters to the posting, and that launched a process that ultimately led Freeman to reject the job.

Freeman's defenders, who thought his tough views on Israel's settlement policies would bring a breath of fresh air in the new Obama administration, were appalled.

"A newly elected President of the United States vs. a guy on trial for espionage," MJ Rosenberg of the Israel Policy Forum wrote on his blog at Talking Points Memo. "A new definition of chutzpah is born!"

Rosen, 65, is charged under the 1917 Espionage Act, but not for spying. The section cited in the indictment deals only with handling sensitive information.

Rosen is no stranger to charges of chutzpah -- and worse. But when he was one of the top figures at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, he made a point of wielding his brashness away from the limelight. Every conversation, every lunch with a journalist would begin with a perfunctory "This is all off the record." His reputed motto, recorded by Jeffrey Goldberg in a 2005 New Yorker profile, was "A lobby is like a night flower: It thrives in the dark and dies in the sun.

No longer."

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[Scurrilous]

13. AJC, ADL urge AIPAC prosecution to reconsider

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"Two top Jewish groups are urging the Justice Department to reconsider its prosecution of former AIPAC staffers Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman.

"The prosecution creates a chilling effect on legitimate speech," American Jewish Committee Executive Director David Harris in a statement Wednesday. "Based upon the facts that the government has divulged thus far, we hope the Department of Justice will take a close look at this case and reconsider whether it should be pursued further."

After the AJC statement was issued, the Anti-Defamation League released a letter it had sent privately last September to the deputy attorney general to "review the charges, the investigation, and the prosecution of this case."

Their letter said that the "prosecution of this case endangers core First Amendment protections not just for AIPAC, but for the media and anyone who, in the course of their work, discusses with government officials something that a prosecutor later decides was protected national defense information."

"We are mindful of and fully support our government's need to protect sensitive national security information," said the letter. "This prosecution, however, is not necessary for such protection."

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[Jefferson23]

14. Not surprising, but disgusting all the same.