Free Republic

Larry Franklin, the former Pentagon analyst convicted of revealing classified information, says he worked undercover as an FBI double agent to gather information on the pro-Israel lobby in the United States before the bureau turned on him and pressured him to plead guilty to spying for Israel.

He was arrested, subjected to humiliating interrogations, accused of spying for Israel, lived under the specter of a 13-year prison term and sold everything he owned to pay for his legal defense. But Lawrence Franklin, 63, a former senior officer in the U.S. Air Force, an intelligence expert, university professor and senior official in the U.S. administration, did not crack.

From [1] time to time I’ve written about some of the more preposterous aspects of the government’s case against former AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) officers Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman. The government alleged that at a June 26, 2003, lunch, a Department of Defense employee, Lawrence Franklin, disclosed classified national defense information related to potential attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq to Rosen and Weissman, who were then employed by AIPAC. Franklin admitted that he’d told the AIPAC employees about Iranian participation in terrorism, asked them to pass the information on to the National Security Council, and sought...

~snip~An early test of all these traits will come in the next few weeks, when the new attorney general is expected to review the Justice Department's flawed, embarrassing prosecution of two former lobbyists for AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The lobbyists, Steven J. Rosen, and a junior associate, Keith Weissman, are charged under the 1917 Espionage Act with receiving classified information from Lawrence Franklin, then a top Defense Department official. The lobbyists allegedly passed on the information they had received to a reporter for the Washington Post and an Israeli embassy employee. Much of the information was about...

Government insiders who engage in unauthorized leaks of classified information are violating their oaths, breaking the law, damaging national security and deserving of punishment. Sometimes those outside government who receive secrets and pass them to others are also breaking the law and deserve punishment. The latter category includes enemy spies. But what about American lobbyists -- and journalists -- who receive secrets and pass them along? In an important trial set to begin in January, the Justice Department has irresponsibly confused the distinction between spying and lobbying. Keith Weissman and Steven J. Rosen, two former employees of AIPAC, the pro-Israel...

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and more than a dozen other current and former intelligence officials must testify about their conversations with pro-Israel lobbyists, a federal judge ruled Friday in an espionage case. Lawyers for two former American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbyists facing charges have subpoenaed Rice, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams and several others to testify at their trial next year. Prosecutors had challenged the subpoenas in federal court. Lobbyists Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman maintain the Israeli interest group played an unofficial but sanctioned role in crafting foreign policy...

Keith Weissman and Steven Rosen Are PhDs and Middle East Experts Who Did Some Lobbying. They Thought They Were Doing What Washington Insiders Always Do. Thomas O’Donnell didn’t reveal his job when he phoned Keith Weissman in 2004 and got the policy analyst’s wife. He says he didn’t want to scare her. When Weissman returned the call and found out O’Donnell was an FBI agent, his first reaction was to attempt a joke: “What did I do?” “I’m sure you didn’t do anything,” O’Donnell told him. He wanted to meet that day, for five or ten minutes, and get Weissman’s...

<p>The case is a spin-off of a probe that has already led to charges under the Espionage Act against two AIPAC lobbyists, whose case is still pending, and to a 12-and-a-half-year prison sentence for former Defense Intelligence Agency official Lawrence A. Franklin. Franklin pleaded guilty a year ago to three felony counts involving improper disclosure and handling of classified information about the Middle East and terrorism to the two lobbyists, who in turn are accused of passing it on to a journalist and a foreign government, widely believed to be Israel. The two lobbyists, who have denied any wrongdoing but were dismissed by AIPAC in April of 2005, were indicted on felony counts of conspiring with government officials to receive classified information they were not authorized to have access to and providing national defense information to people not entitled to receive it.</p>

March 7, 2006 Expect Journalistic Tongues to Loosen By Jack Kelly Journalists will be paying rapt attention when Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman go on trial next month for violation of the Espionage Act of 1917. Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman were officials of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. They received classified information from Lawrence Franklin, an analyst at the Department of Defense, which they passed on to an Israeli diplomat, and to journalists. They are the first private citizens ever to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act. Mr. Franklin pled guilty Jan. 20th and was sentenced to more than...

Journalists will be paying rapt attention when Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman go on trial next month for violation of the Espionage Act of 1917. Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman were officials of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. They received classified information from Lawrence Franklin, an analyst at the Department of Defense, which they passed on to an Israeli diplomat, and to journalists. They are the first private citizens ever to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act. ..... But it's more likely prosecutors will use the Plame precedent to get journalists to disclose their sources. The NSA leak investigation issaid...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A former Pentagon analyst who gave classified information to an Israeli diplomat and two members of a pro- Israel lobbying group was sentenced Friday to more than 12 years in prison. Lawrence A. Franklin, 59, had worked with top Pentagon officials, including former undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith, and has expertise on Iraq and Iran. He pleaded guilty in October to three felony counts in exchange for three other counts being dropped. In sentencing Franklin, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III said the facts of the case led him to believe that Franklin was motivated...

A senior Defense Department analyst admitted Wednesday that he shared secret military information with two pro-Israeli lobbyists and an Israeli official in an effort to create a "backchannel" to the Bush administration on Middle East policy. The analyst, Lawrence A. Franklin, pleaded guilty in federal court here to three criminal counts for improperly retaining and disclosing classified information, and he gave the first account of his motives and thinking in establishing secret liaisons with people outside the government. The offenses carry a maximum of 25 years in prison, but as part of a plea agreement, prosecutors are expected to recommend...

Two former officials of a pro-Israel lobbying group were charged in an indictment filed Thursday with illegally conspiring to gather and disclose classified national security information to journalists and an unnamed foreign power that government officials identified as Israel. The indictment accused Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, formerly senior staff members at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, with improperly disclosing national security information beginning in April 1999. The group dismissed the two men last April. As the committee's director of foreign policy issues, Mr. Rosen was a highly visible figure in Washington who helped the organization define its...

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...