I ran a search, and checked the front page, but found nothing on this, so here goes...
In a typical Friday news drop, the "U.S. government ..... said it would drop charges in an espionage case against two pro-Israel lobbyists because it was unlikely to win at trial and classified information would have to be disclosed."
This involves Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, two former AIPAC officials, who were implicated in obtaining and passing classified information to Israel. This case is also intertwined with Rep. Jane Harman, who was recorded by the government talking about this case.
More after the fold....
More details from Reuters:
Last week, Representative Jane Harman asked the Justice Department to release secretly taped telephone calls to show she did not intervene in the case.
The New York Times had reported that Harman was overheard on calls intercepted by the National Security Agency in 2005 in which she appeared to agree to seek lenient treatment for the lobbyists.
A former Pentagon analyst, Lawrence Franklin, pleaded guilty to disclosing information to Rosen and Weissman from early 2002 through June 2004.
The defense for the lobbyists had argued that U.S. government officials regularly conveyed sensitive, nonpublic information to the defendants and others at AIPAC, with the expectation it would be disclosed to foreign government officials and the news media.
Personally, I'm not sure how to feel about this;. It seems to me, that if the information that was passed was important enough to give Larry Franklin 12 years in prison, then it was mighty damned important, and it seems Rosen and Weissman were cut loose more to keep things "tidy", than to administer proper justice.
There's that, and then the incredible influence and pressure AIPAC brought to bear on this matter, and so many others. I also wonder if the government dropped this to keep Harman out of hot water, and perhaps off the witness stand? Regardless, the whole thing stinks.