US authorities are investigating an aide to a senior Pentagon official who allegedly passed classified White House policy documents on Iran to Israel, with the help of employees of a powerful pro-Israel lobby, a US official has confirmed.
The probe targets an individual in the office of Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, the third-most senior official at the Pentagon, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The FBI believes the man received no money but acted out of ideological support for the Jewish state, the official said.
The aide is thought to have passed the information to Israel via at least one person tied to an influential lobby group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the official said.
Israeli officials and an AIPAC spokesman denied the allegations.
Senior Israeli officials quoted by public radio in Jerusalem said Israel had not conducted intelligence gathering activities on US soil for years.
"This case is very bizarre and we don't know what it's about," one Israeli official said.
"We deny these allegations," the Israeli embassy in Washington said in a short written statement. "The United States is Israel's most cherished friend and ally. We have a strong, ongoing, working relationship at all levels and in no way would Israel do anything to impair this relationship."
CBS News, which first reported the investigation late on Friday, quoted sources as saying the suspected spy last year turned over a presidential directive on US policy toward Iran while it was "in the draft phase when US policy-makers were still debating the policy."
This put the Israelis, according to one source, "inside the decision-making loop" so they could "try to influence the outcome."
US authorities had requested information about two AIPAC employees implicated in the case, CBS reported.
AIPAC said it was cooperating fully with the government's investigation but was confident that it and its employees would be cleared of any wrongdoing.
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