Prosecutors to Drop Charges Against Two Former AIPAC Lobbyists

[Emit]

Friday, May 1, 2009; 10:29 AM

The U.S. government is abandoning espionage-law charges against two former lobbyists for a pro-Israel advocacy group, federal officials announced this morning.

Prosecutors said they will ask a judge to dismiss the case against Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman because a series of court decisions had made it unlikely they would win convictions. The two are former lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, an influential advocacy group.

Rosen and Weissman were charged in 2005 with conspiring to obtain classified information and pass it to journalists and the Israeli government. They were the first non-government civilians charged under the 1917 espionage statute with verbally receiving and transmitting national defense information. Some lawyers and First Amendment advocates have said the case would criminalize the type of information exchange that is common among journalists, lobbyists and think-tank analysts.
Dana J. Boente, the acting U.S. Attorney in Alexandria, said this morning that prosecutors were abandoning the case because of "the diminished likelihood the government will prevail at trial under the additional intent requirements imposed by the court and the inevitable disclosure of classified information that would occur at any trial.'' Prosecutors have filed a motion to dismiss the indictment, which must be approved by a federal judge.
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Baruch Weiss, a lawyer for Weissman, said that the two former lobbyists "are innocent, and it's been clear to us from outset that we would ultimately prevail.'' ...

~snip~

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/01/AR2009050101310.html?hpid=topnews

[fascisthunter]

1. oh, how Speshullll

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Just like when they decided not to prosecute Richard Perle in 1970.