Two former employees of a pro-Israel lobbying organization conspired to obtain and disclose classified US defense information for five years, a federal indictment says. A Pentagon analyst indicted along with them is accused of providing information to them for only two years.
Someone must have been their source of information the rest of that time, but the indictment unsealed Thursday in US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, doesn't say who.
Steven Rosen, formerly the director of foreign policy issues for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and Keith Weissman, AIPAC's former senior Iran analyst, conspired to obtain and disclose classified US defense information, the five-count indictment says.
The charges follow the indictment in June of Pentagon analyst Lawrence Franklin, who is accused of leaking classified military information to an Israeli official and the AIPAC employees. All three deny the charges.
Franklin, who specialized in Iranian and Middle Eastern affairs, met the men in 2003.
The investigation has been under way since at least 2001 and has included use of sophisticated electronic surveillance techniques, law enforcement officials have said. The indictment suggests that investigators were listening in on Rosen as far back as 1999, because the indictment includes a purported snippet of a conversation he had with an unidentified foreign official.
For the past two years, the FBI has focused on whether Franklin passed classified US material on Iran and other matters to AIPAC, and whether that group in turn sent it to Israel. Both AIPAC and Israel deny any wrongdoing. AIPAC fired Rosen and Weissman in April.
"The organization does not seek, use or request anything but legally obtained appropriate information as part of its work," AIPAC spokesman Patrick Dorton said.
Israel has said it imposed a ban on espionage in the US after the 1985 scandal in which civilian US Navy analyst Jonathan Pollard was caught spying for Israel. He was sentenced to life in prison. That case damaged US-Israeli relations and remains a sore point between them.
The investigation that led to Thursday's charges has been closely followed in Washington, where AIPAC is an influential interest group.
The government has not accused Franklin, Rosen and Weissman of espionage, although the FBI has questioned at least one Israeli official and also wants to talk to Naor Gilon, who recently returned to Israel after a stint as a senior diplomat in the Israeli Embassy in Washington.
Israeli Embassy spokesman David Siegel said his country's diplomats have done nothing wrong.
"We've seen no information to suggest anything to the contrary," Siegel said.
He acknowledged that US officials have asked about questioning Gilon. "We've expressed our willingness to cooperate," he said.
Rosen, a top AIPAC lobbyist for 23 years, and Weissman disclosed sensitive information as far back as 1999 on a variety of topics, including al-Qaeda, terrorist activities in Central Asia, the bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia and US policy in Iran, the indictment says. Among their contacts were US and foreign government officials and reporters, the indictment said.
While the indictment suggests that at least two other US government officials also were sources of classified information, no other charges are planned at this time, US Attorney Paul McNulty said at a news conference in Alexandria, just outside Washington.
McNulty said the men apparently were motivated by a desire to advance their personal agendas and careers by trading on prized information.
"The facts alleged today tell a story of individuals who put their own interests and their own views of foreign policy ahead of American national security," McNulty said.
Rosen, 63, Weissman, 53, and Franklin, 58, are scheduled to be arraigned Aug. 16 in Alexandria.
"The charges in the indictment announced today are entirely unjustified," said Abbe Lowell, Rosen's attorney. John Nassikas, Weissman's lawyer, said, "We are disappointed that the government has decided to pursue these charges, which Mr. Weissman strongly denies."
Franklin previously pleaded innocent, but Thursday's indictment dropped one charge against him and he will be re-arraigned on the others. Prosecutors did not explain why they dropped the charge of communicating classified information to someone not authorized to receive it.
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