A War Against Harman?
| Thu Apr. 23, 2009 7:29 AM PDT
When the Jane Harman story first broke, I thought the most interesting question might very well be, Who leaked it? The more I read about it, the more I'm beginning to think I was right. Here's the latest from CQ:
Intelligence officials, angry that former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had blocked an FBI investigation into Democratic Rep. Jane Harman's interactions with a suspected Israeli agent, tipped off Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, that Harman had been picked up on a court-ordered National Security Agency wiretap targeting the agent.
In doing so, the officials flouted an order by Gonzales not to inform Pelosi, three former national security officials said.
....A well-placed source said an official from the CIA had gone around Gonzales to inform Pelosi about Harman being picked up on the wiretap...."She knew. We made sure she knew," said one of the former officials, chuckling.
It's not at all clear that Harman did anything wrong here. (Though it's not clear that she didn't either.) What is clear is that the CIA is engaged in some pretty serious message sending against people they don't like. My guess: I don't know how Harman is going to weather all this, but I don't think it's going to turn out well for the CIA. They may have gone a couple of steps too far this time.
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Comments
Why is the CIA involved at all?
Submitted by Walker (not verified) on Thu Apr. 23, 2009 7:47 AM PDT.
Isn't this clearly NSA turf? Aren't there laws that prevent the CIA from stepping on NSA turf? What is going on here?
So the current administration...
Submitted by Nat on Thu Apr. 23, 2009 7:48 AM PDT.
So the current administration is going to hammer the CIA for something that happened in 2005? And take the side of Gonzo??? Please. Ahh, but this is really about Israel. The tin foil hat wearers among us figure the Mossad and the CIA are joined at the hip. How does that work in this situation? The CIA burned Harman, although I would have figured it was the FBI. Nothing will happen although it's fun seeing Congressional outrage over a legal wire tap. The hearings should be fun. And I really hope someone takes Harman up on her bluff and releases the tapes.
since Harman was being
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu Apr. 23, 2009 7:56 AM PDT.
since Harman was being considered for a chairmanship at the time,
i dont think it was a war against Harman , more like a
concern for the independence of a chairman.
The smell
Submitted by Art Eclectic on Thu Apr. 23, 2009 7:56 AM PDT.
Amazing how the stench of the Bush administration continues to waft through our lives. Sunlight is supposed to be a disinfectant; the deeper we dig into this trash pile the worse it gets.
Harmon, the NY Times and Isreal
Submitted by greathornedlizard (not verified) on Thu Apr. 23, 2009 8:03 AM PDT.
Surprise Surprise!
The NY Times, (western edition of the Jerusalem Post) and Rep. Harmon (D. Tel Aviv) played politics to help Isreal and wound up helping to re-elect Bush.
And John Kerry is going to go to bat for the NY Times in their financial meltdown?
voters should determine whether she did anything wrong
Submitted by tpx on Thu Apr. 23, 2009 8:16 AM PDT.
The voters in Rep. Harman's district should determine whether she did anything wrong. The full transcript of the call and all other evidence of her financial involvement with the Israeli operative should be sent to every household in her district.
Unless I misunderstand this
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu Apr. 23, 2009 8:44 AM PDT.
Unless I misunderstand this whole episode, it appears to me that the wiretaps were of the Israeli agent who was suspected of spying. No one was wiretapping Harmon's phones. She just happened to be recorded on the wiretap of the Israeli agent's phone.
Now it is my assumption that various government agencies are monitoring foreign agents who might be operating in the US. That's their job. It's called counter-espionage. And it has been going on since before the days of the Roman Empire.
Now as long as the wiretaps were obtained legally, I'm not sure what the big deal is. I'm a liberal and I want my government monitoring the activities of foreign agents in this country. Including Israeli agents.
There may be some minor outrage due as a result of how these wiretaps were leaked. But I'm not sure there is any cause to be outraged that a member of congress was wiretapped. Because she wasn't. She just had the misfortune of talking to an Israeli agent who's phone was being rightfully tapped.
I suppose it depends. . .
Submitted by Steve (not verified) on Sat Apr. 25, 2009 5:55 PM PDT.
. . . on whether you consider Israeli agents to be "foreign" or not, doesn't it?
Just sayin'.
tangled issues.
Submitted by BigTom (not verified) on Thu Apr. 23, 2009 8:56 AM PDT.
This is quite a web of tangled issues. Wiretapping in general. Potential influence and corruption. The undue influence of the Israeli lobby. Whether Harmons "this didn't take place" comment, was a dismissal of the attempted influence (you've crossed the line, I'll have nothing to do with it), or something more sinister. Just too many cross currents going on here to know just what to think.
#1 Registering to Comment? #2 Harman shills for AIPAC anyway
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu Apr. 23, 2009 9:58 AM PDT.
First, what's with this registering b.s.? I haven't looked @ k. drum in a while, but am certain that subjecting oneself to data mining was not formerly part of the comment process. Why does Mother Jones need to know anymore about me than my email address? -- which, one supposes, would become relevant in the event of inflammatory remarks worthy of Homeland Security's involvement. "Registering" is nothing more than a veiled attempt to amass salable marketing data, and Mother Jones should be ashamed for stooping to such grubby, despicable tactics.
UPDATE: Now I discover:
"Cookies should be enabled in your browser for CAPTCHA validation," which means that I have to activate the "accept all cookies" option on my browser, a really bad idea, btw, in general, which also reveals that this CAPTCHA cookie is for some other entity, not the Mother Jones site to which I had navigated. This feels really icky and thoroughly invalidates any credibility, let alone admiration, M.J. may have accrued as a venerable liberal institution. Such scummy web methods as this stealth cookie place M.J. somewhere far beneath Fox News on the ethics scale.
O.K. this once, because I am angry that M.J. has sunk to such sleazy Orwellian web tactics -- AND that M.J. should know that their perfidy has not gone unnoticed -- but be sure that Drum is no longer going to have a bookmark in my browser, either, after I post this.
I doubt if I will be back soon, if ever, but while I'm here, I'm curious why no story I have yet seen on the Harman wiretapping imbroglio has mentioned that she has unapologetically been carrying water for AIPAC for years. Some observers place the congressional district that she represents, and for which she gathers non-kosher pork, as in the state of Israel rather than in the state of California, making her, in effect, the Representative for Israel in the U.S. Congress. Check her record. She has voted for absolutely every appropriation -- military or otherwise -- for the Zionist government.
He's an angry elf!
Submitted by jrw on Thu Apr. 23, 2009 12:15 PM PDT.
Jesus, lighten up dude, or if this site is worse than Fox News, don't post here.
you are right, and
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu Apr. 23, 2009 2:50 PM PDT.
you are right, and regrettably -- because there was a time back when kevin drum not only garnered my respect for the thoughtful integrity of his observations but also attracted a smart, well-informed readership -- I won't bother in the future. adios.
the point of having a blog is so people can comment
Submitted by tpx on Fri Apr. 24, 2009 8:35 AM PDT.
The point of having a blog is so people can comment. Comments are why blogs are popular, and why magazines have incorporated them into their websites. Comments should drive readers to websites, which is why making comments difficult to post or censoring hostile comments makes no sense. Stripping comment sections of their emotional charge reduces the amount of comments, as does making them difficult to post. Newspapers no longer provide worthwhile news. Detroit no longer produces cars people need. Microsoft's terrible products rule the office. Blogs no longer want flame wars. The economy no longer produces value added goods and services that motivates people to consume them.
What is clear is that the
Submitted by Brian on Thu Apr. 23, 2009 10:04 AM PDT.
What is clear is that the CIA is engaged in some pretty serious message sending against people they don't like.
I guess Rep. Harman knows how the Bush Admin. felt.
CIA may be the hero
Submitted by apthorp (not verified) on Thu Apr. 23, 2009 10:14 AM PDT.
"They may have gone a couple of steps too far this time."
Or, if it isn't a head fake, they could look like the folk holding the reasonable and responsible line against Gonzos Gone Wild (tm)
assholes, but 'our' assholes.
or not.
Best as I can tell, this is
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu Apr. 23, 2009 10:15 AM PDT.
Best as I can tell, this is Kevin Drum's standard for determining the appropriateness of CIA leaks.
Damaging national security leaks harmful to the Bush administration = good.
Damaging national security leaks harmful to a Democratic member of Congress = bad.
What a piece of work. She
Submitted by leak (not verified) on Thu Apr. 23, 2009 10:25 AM PDT.
What a piece of work. She was willingly to downplay espionage charges in return for pressuring Pelosi to make her chair of the intel committee. The CIA not wanting her to be chair and leaking to ensure she didn't get the gig seems fairly reasonable to me.
Missing the story
Submitted by daCascadian (not verified) on Thu Apr. 23, 2009 12:22 PM PDT.
You folks are really missing it on this one so far. Remember that you are dealing with the spook community & you can NEVER, EVER take ANY public parts of stories about said community at anywhere near face value.
This is a prime example of Beltway Chicken being played out on the public stage. If you put the several stories on this (CQ, NYTimes, WaPost etc) together what you get is probably multiple calls and, at best, a very muddled timeline of events.
Bureaucratic Warfare at the top of the federal government being fed/fueled by multiple "foreign" governments. Remember that all actors tend to gang up on the current King of the Hill so as to dethrone said king (U.S.A.) and then battle over the next, to be crowned, king.
Wise up folks !
"There are three kinds of men:
1. The ones that learn by reading.
2. The few who learn by observation.
3. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves." - Will Rogers
Patriotic or prudent. But yes, reasonable.
Submitted by Wapiti (not verified) on Thu Apr. 23, 2009 12:30 PM PDT.
The CIA not wanting her to be chair and leaking to ensure she didn't get the gig seems fairly reasonable to me.
Reasonable? Seems like the patriotic course of action. Or at least the prudent one.
"So, Fred, it looks like Harman is line for the committee chair. Could be some budgetary advantage to us, knowing what we know." "Yeah, but I don't like it, Joe. If we've got her on tape, who else, maybe our friends in Jerusalem or Moscow or Timbuktu have her on tape as well." "Guys, better to burn her and be in Nancy's good graces, because eventually that tape will come to light. And then Nancy *and* Obama will be pissed at us for not letting her know. And they'll be right."
I wouldn't trivialize spying
Submitted by Luther on Thu Apr. 23, 2009 10:10 PM PDT.
I wouldn't trivialize spying for our arch-enemy Israel.
http://www.counterpunch.org/green09032004.html
Gonzales was flouting procedure
Submitted by Chris (not verified) on Sat Apr. 25, 2009 6:09 AM PDT.
Perhaps it's more defensible considering that Gonzales was flouting long-standing procedure that stated both party leaders in Congress should be informed if a member of the House or Senate is being monitored.
I don't know about the CIA involvement...but at least they were doing the *right* thing in informing Pelosi...even if there was an axe to grind.
That's as far as I understand it so far, anyway.
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