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Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin has been indicted on charges he leaked classified military information to employees of AIPAC, according to court papers made public Monday. The six-count indictment charges that Franklin conspired to disclose national defense and classified information to people not entitled to receive it, including information about potential attacks on US forces in Iraq.

The FBI's investigation of AIPAC June 1st, 2005 The extremely comfortable and secure American Jewish community is totally unaware of the deadly peril that is even now threatening the security that it takes for granted. But in the near future, this peril will become too visible and immediate to be ignored any longer. I speak of the FBI’s ongoing investigation of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee –AIPAC-- which has been ongoing for four years now and is very far from being over. A low-ranking civilian employee of the Pentagon, Larry Franklin, was formally charged on May 4 with having given...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Pentagon analyst faces a new charge of knowingly and unlawfully possessing classified U.S. government documents at his home in West Virginia. Larry Franklin was arrested May 4 on charges that in June 2003 he provided unauthorized persons classified information regarding potential attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq. Law enforcement sources said Franklin passed along the information during a lunch with two people who at the time worked for the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobby group. The U.S. attorney's office in Martinsburg, West Virginia, filed the new charge Tuesday. It said Franklin, an employee...

When the name Lawrence Franklin first splashed onto the front pages during the Republican National Convention last August, Americans were assured by the Washington Post, the New York Times, CBS News, and others that he was a spy for Israel who would soon be arrested. News stories abounded about how this former Air Force colonel and Defense Intelligence Agency analyst might have been connected to a forgery that claimed Iraq tried to procure uranium from Niger. Or that he passed on code-word-sensitive intelligence to Ahmad Chalabi. Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat from Michigan and the ranking member of the House...

Former Pentagon DOD analyst Larry Franks has surrendered to the FBI on classified document charges. Follow link for story.

Washington - The FBI arrested a defence department analyst on Wednesday on charges that he passed classified information on Iran to employees of a pro-Israel lobbying group. Larry Franklin, 58, turned himself in on Wednesday, FBI spokesperson Debra Weierman said. He was scheduled to make an initial appearance in US district court in Virginia later in the day, Weierman said. Franklin, who specialised on Iran and Middle Eastern affairs, allegedly gave the information to two people not entitled to receive it at a meeting in June 2003. The people at the lunch were employees of the American Israel public affairs...

Pentagon analyst charged with disclosing secrets 13 minutes ago A Defense Department analyst was arrested on Wednesday on charges of disclosing classified information about potential attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq to two individuals with a pro-Israel lobbying group. Lawrence Franklin, 58, surrendered to the FBI and faces charges of disclosing classified U.S. national defense information to the individuals that sources said were with the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The Justice Department, in announcing the case, said that Franklin faced a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. Franklin, a Defense Department employee since 1979, worked on the...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI arrested a Pentagon analyst Wednesday on charges that he illegally passed classified information about potential attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq to employees of a pro-Israel group. Larry Franklin, 58, of Kearneysville, W. Va., turned himself in Wednesday morning, FBI spokeswoman Debra Weierman said. He was scheduled to make an initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Virginia later Wednesday, Weierman said.Franklin, who specialized on Iran and Middle Eastern affairs, allegedly gave the information to two people not entitled to receive it at a luncheon meeting at a restaurant in Arlington, Va., in June 2003,...

Sources in Jerusalem vehemently denied any Israeli espionage in the US, terming as an "internal US political story" the reports that a mid-level Pentagon official is under investigation for allegedly passing classified material to AIPAC, which in turn allegedly passed it on to Israel. Security sources in Israel confirmed Sunday morning that Larry Franklin, the suspected "mole" in the Pentagon, did in fact have work ties with Jerusalem, but declare that the relationship most certainly did not deviate from standard diplomatic contact, Israel Radio reported. "This is an American political story, an elections story, a pre-convention story to try to...

WASHINGTON -- Members of Congress have expressed anger and dismay over Sunday's report in The Jerusalem Post describing how the FBI set up the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC. Plato Cacheris, the lawyer for Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin, who was used by the FBI to plant "classified" information with trusting AIPAC officials, has confirmed the accuracy of the Post's report. Cacheris added that Franklin broke off contact with the FBI because he was "disappointed in their response to his assistance." Meanwhile, Israel's ambassador to the US, Daniel Ayalon, has declined to comment on the Post's account of an AIPAC official giving the...

WASHINGTON -- AIPAC, the powerhouse pro-Israel lobby currently embroiled in allegations of spying for Israel, was set up by the FBI, The Jerusalem Post has learned. FBI agents used a courier, Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin, to draw two senior AIPAC officials who already knew him into accepting what he described to them as "classified" information, reliable government and other sources intimately familiar with the investigation have told the Post. One of the AIPAC pair then told diplomats at the Israeli Embassy in Washington about the "classified" information, which claimed Iranians were monitoring and planning to kidnap and kill Israelis operating...

Doing the dirty work of careerists at the State Department and CIA, the Washington Post has used its respected platform to besmirch the names of both public and private figures at the Pentagon and tar them with the implication of harboring dual loyalties for Israel—or worse, that they possibly acted on those supposed impulses. What did the five individuals named by the Post on September 4—who were a mix of low-level bureaucrats, high-ranking officials, and one former advisor on the Defense Policy Board—have in common? They were all Jews. That’s not all. The Post piece further explains that all “have...

The past couple weeks have seen a swirl of anonymous allegations of supposed spying and espionage, including implications that the Pentagon civilian staff might be teeming with double agents for the Jewish state. Thing is, almost none of it is true. Beyond mishandling of classified documents—not an inconsequential offense, to be sure—every other accusation leveled by unnamed State Department and intelligence officials appears part of a carefully calculated campaign to question the loyalty of several Pentagon civilian employees by name, as well as a much larger group by implication. According to someone with intimate knowledge of the draft presidential directive...

In an indication of their growing estrangement with the Bush administration, neoconservatives are slamming the White House for failing to stop what they describe as an antisemitic campaign to marginalize them being conducted by the CIA and the State Department. This view was outlined in a memo circulating among neoconservative foreign policy analysts in Washington. Obtained by the Forward, the memo criticizes the White House for not refuting press reports on the FBI's investigation of Pentagon analyst Lawrence Franklin that suggest wrongdoing on the part of Jewish officials at the Defense Department. "If there is any truth to any of...

FBI counterintelligence investigators have in recent weeks questioned current and former U.S. officials about whether a small group of Iran specialists at the Pentagon and in Vice President Cheney's office may have been involved in passing classified information to an Iraqi politician or a U.S. lobbying group allied with Israel, according to sources familiar with or involved in the case. In their interviews, the FBI agents have also named two Israeli diplomats stationed in Washington and asked whether they would be willing recipients of sensitive intelligence, the sources added. The investigators have asked questions about personnel in the office of...

Less than 48 hours had passed since CBS News broke the news about an FBI investigation involving the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and the lobbying powerhouse was facing its first public test. The setting was Sunday's "community celebration" sponsored by Aipac, United Jewish Communities and the Republican Jewish Coalition. The list of expected guest included 1,000 delegates to the Republican convention, Jewish communal leaders, volunteers and public dignitaries. In the end, according to an Aipac spokesman, all the big names showed up. The crowd included more than 60 members of the House of Representatives, eight senators, two Cabinet officials,...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 - The Pentagon's policy office, where a lower-level analyst is under suspicion of passing secrets to Israel, was deeply involved in deliberations over how the United States should deal with Iran, its conservative Islamic government and its nuclear weapons ambitions - all issues of intense concern to Israel as well. The analyst, Lawrence A. Franklin, a Farsi-speaking specialist on Iran in the office, participated in a secret outreach meeting with an Iranian opposition figure, had access to classified intelligence about Iran's nuclear program and was one of many officials involved in drafting a top-secret presidential order on...

WASHINGTON - An FBI probe into the handling of highly classified material by Pentagon civilians is broader than previously reported, and goes well beyond allegations that a single mid-level analyst gave a top-secret Iran policy document to Israel, three sources familiar with the investigation said Saturday. The probe, which has been going on for more than two years, also has focused on other civilians in the Secretary of Defense's office, said the sources, who spoke on condition they not be identified, but who have first-hand knowledge of the subject. In addition, one said, FBI investigators in recent weeks have conducted...

WASHINGTON: Washington was rocked late last week by allegations that a Pentagon policy analyst on Iran, Laurence A. Franklin, had passed classified information to Israel through the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the leading pro-Israel lobby group in the US. He is also said to have had extensive meetings with Naor Gilon, head of the political department at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, and a specialist on Iran's nuclear weapons program. While both AIPAC and the Israeli government have issued categorical denials of any espionage activities, most observers say that law enforcement officials would not leak the accusations if they...

So all those left-wing kids taking media studies courses at college do seem actually to have learned something: The anti-Republican demonstraters who filed through Manhattan yesterday avoided disorder and violence to focus instead on creating powerful images for the evening news. Their message may be wrong-headed, but they did not step on it. And the same can be said for whoever it was that leaked the story of the investigation of the alleged leak of a Pentagon planning document to a pro-Israel lobbying group. What a triumph of press manipulation this story is! Somebody sold CBS News, NBC, and the...