Rep. Jane Harman's Connections With AIPAC
On the House Intelligence Committee, it's a heaping
plate of controversy.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15419753/site/newsweek/
By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Oct. 25, 2006 - While reportedly under investigation
for her ties to an influential pro-Israel lobbying
organization, California Rep. Jane Harman last month
hosted a private dinner for the group that was attended
by two top Bush administration officials-Director of
National Intelligence John Negroponte and Secretary of
Homeland Security Michael Chertoff.
The Sept. 13 dinner took place at the home of Harman,
the ranking Democrat on the House Select Committee on
Intelligence, and was attended by over 120 top
financial backers of the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The highlight of the
evening was a panel discussion in which Harman played
the host, questioning Negroponte and Chertoff about
Mideast developments, international terrorism and
homeland-security issues, according to an AIPAC
official.
The dinner was hardly an unusual one for AIPAC. The
group often arranges such elite pow-wows at the homes
of senior members of Congress and government officials
(one in the mid-1990s was hosted by then Vice President
Al Gore) as a way for AIPAC to both demonstrate its
political clout and to provide a perk for major donors.
But last month's event raises new questions about
recent reports that the FBI was investigating whether
Harman, an outspoken supporter of Israel, last year
may have agreed to improperly influence an ongoing
Justice Department probe of AIPAC. The reports of the
probe came just a few days after Harman released a
politically sensitive House report that included
important new details about the investigation
surrounding the activities of disgraced former GOP
Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham.
The low-level probe into Harman was launched last year
after department officials received a tip that Harman
was at the same time seeking the assistance of big
AIPAC donors to lobby House Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi to stay on as the top Democrat on the
Intelligence Committee (and become the panel's
chairman if the Democrats retake control of the
House in next month's elections.)
Harman has dismissed the investigation, first reported
last week by Time magazine's Web site, as "laughable,"
and no evidence has surfaced of any quid pro quo, or
even any Harman effort to influence Justice. A Harman
aide on Wednesday pointed to Negroponte and Chertoff's
presence at Harman's home as further evidence that the
inquiry couldn't possibly have been a serious one. "It
makes no sense," said the aide, who asked not to be
identified while talking about sensitive matters. "If
there was a serious investigation going on, and there
were concerns about Jane Harman's reliability and
intentions, why would the administration agree to send
these two heavy hitters?"
One explanation could be that the reported Harman probe
was on such a close hold that senior administration
officials attending last month's dinner never even
knew about the inquiry. Chertoff, who was chief of the
Justice Department's criminal division between 2001
and 2003, "was not aware of an investigation at that
time" and only learned about the "alleged
investigation" when it became public a few days ago,
a spokesman told NEWSWEEK on Wednesday.
A senior law-enforcement official said that Harman
"has been looked at in a very preliminary level"
because officials are obligated to pursue tips when
they come into the Justice Department. But while
describing the investigation as "not particularly well
developed," the official added that "it's not closed."
But another explanation, the one preferred by Harman's
allies, is that leaks about the probe were part of a
political effort to discredit her and to divert
attention from what they believe is the real issue: a
web of influence peddling and corruption in
national-security contracting that has tainted the
House Intelligence Committee itself. The key, they say,
is timing. Harman, in recent weeks, has been engaged
in an intense and increasingly bitter battle with
Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Pete Hoekstra, a
Republican from Michigan, over the release of an
internal report on the activities of Duke Cunningham,
the former California Republican congressman and member
of the Intelligence Committee who resigned last year
after pleading guilty to accepting at least $2.4
million in bribes. When Hoekstra refused to release a
public executive summary of the report, Harman on her
own two weeks ago released a copy and posted it on her
Web site a move that infuriated Hoekstra and other GOP
members of the committee.
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/ca36_harman/October_17_06.html
The next day, Hoekstra unilaterally suspended Larry
Hanauer, a Democratic staff member who reported to
Harman, allegedly because of suspicions that Hanauer
may have leaked a classified intelligence report on
Iraq. (Hanauer has since denied in a sworn affidavit
that he played any role in leaking the report, and
Democrats have charged that the aide's suspension was
done as "retaliation" for Harman's release of the
Cunningham report.)
It was in the midst of this highly charged, and
partisan, squabbling that the reports of the FBI
investigation into Harman surfaced. They also came at
a time that Pelosi, in line to be House Speaker if the
Democrats win, was signaling she does not want Harman
to be chairman of the intelligence panel; reports of a
FBI probe into Harman would presumably give Pelosi
cover to deny the chairmanship to Harman-a moderate
Democrat whom Pelosi feels has not been aggressive
enough in challenging the Bush administration.
Obscured amid the charges and countercharges is the
important new information on the Cunningham
investigation included in the Intelligence Committee
report, prepared by a special counsel and released by
Harman. One was the conclusion by the special counsel,
Michael Stern, that the House Intelligence Committee
staff had ignored numerous "red flags" that Cunningham
was using his position on the panel to steer Pentagon
intelligence contracts to one of the contractors,
Mitch Wade, who was paying him bribes. (Wade has since
pled guilty to bribing Cunningham.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/24/AR2006022401737.html
The red flags included "frequently expressed questions
about the ethics and integrity of Wade" and "doubts
about the value of the project" that Cunningham was
directing to Wade's company, according to the report.
The other new element was the special counsel's call
for further investigation into the award of large CIA
contracts to yet another unidentified company. Federal
sources and lawyers close to the case-who asked not to
be identified talking about classified matters-tell
NEWSWEEK that the unidentified company in the report
is Global Transportation Systems (GTS), a
Virginia-based shipping broker whose president,
Richard Wenzel, has emerged as a potentially key
witness in ongoing federal investigations into
political influence peddling that have grown out of
the Cunningham case, the sources said.
In January 2004, according to investigative blogger
Laura Rozen,
http://www.warandpiece.com/
Wenzel and his company hired as Washington lobbyists a
company affiliated with Brent Wilkes, a San Diego
businessman who has been named as an unindicated
co-conspirator in the Cunningham case. The committee
report also describes a private dinner at a fancy
Washington restaurant attended by Wenzel, Wilkes,
former top CIA official Kyle (Dusty) Foggo and a House
Intelligence Committee staffer apparently seeking a
job from Wenzel. (Lawyers for Foggo and Wilkes have
denied any wrongdoing by their clients. Wenzel could
not be reached for comment.) The clear suggestion in
the committee counsel's report is that these alleged
cozy relationships among congressional staffers and
government officials may have distorted
national-security contracting and cost the taxpayers
millions of dollars-issues that are potentially more
serious than the low-priority probe of Harman or her
political feuds with her House colleagues.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15419753/site/newsweek/
--
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
John J. Mearsheimer
University of Chicago - Department of Political Science
Stephen M. Walt
Harvard University - John F. Kennedy School of Government
http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011
( has polemical response from Alan Dershowitz at site )
Edited non-PDF HTML version :
http://www.lrb.co.uk./v28/n06/mear01_.html
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