Calif.'s Harman Rails Against Wiretapping That Ensnared Her

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"Rep. Jane Harman vowed yesterday to clear her name after the revelation of a wiretapped conversation in which she reportedly agreed to intervene in the federal investigation of two pro-Israeli lobbyists in exchange for help in getting a coveted congressional post.

The California Democrat noted that she had called on the Justice Department to release all the information it had about secretly monitored conversations that involved her.

"I want it all out there. I want it in public. I want everyone to understand, including me, what has happened," Harman said before a packed auditorium at the opening of the annual policy convention of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobby group.

News organizations reported last month that Harman was caught on a wiretap speaking to a suspected Israeli agent about two AIPAC lobbyists accused of illegally passing classified information to foreign officials and reporters. The congresswoman reportedly agreed to press Bush administration officials to show leniency toward the men, the reports said. In return, the suspected agent said he would lobby for Harman to get the chairmanship of the House intelligence committee, according to the article, first reported on the Congressional Quarterly Web site.

The FBI opened a preliminary investigation of Harman at the time but later closed it, officials said. The congresswoman, a longtime AIPAC supporter, has denied contacting the White House or Justice Department about the two lobbyists. Harman was passed over for the intelligence committee chairmanship when Democrats took control of the House in 2006."

more

[w4rma]

1. Oh, so the biggest Democratic proponent of wiretapping says she was 'ensnared' by it. (nt)

[lapfog_1]

2. There is a BIG difference

The target of the wiretap which "ensnared" her wasn't HER, it was the suspected Israeli spy she was talking to (and promising to do favors for in return for a lobbying effort to make her committee chair person should Pelosi become the next speaker).

It was a LEGAL wiretap, approved by a judge and everything.

[IndianaGreen]

3. She is a tart and a crook!

And she got caught red handed by a legal FISA wiretap.

[Peace Patriot]

4. Interesting that the charges against Israel's agents in the Pentagon were in fact dropped

--just recently. Who did that?

[Sezu]

5. kinda fishy they WON'T release it. n/t

[Scurrilous]

6. Glenn Greenwald: Someone needs to give Jane Harman an award for this

<snip>

"A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about one of the most shameless and absurd spectacles to appear in Washington in some time: the self-righteous, self-obsessed rage expressed by Blue Dog Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) -- leading defender of Bush's illegal domestic eavesdropping programs -- upon learning that one of her conversations had been legally eavesdropped upon as part of a criminal investigation into the actions of a suspected Israeli agent. Over the weekend, Harman (along with half of the U.S. Congress) appeared at the AIPAC conference and continued her new anti-eavesdropping crusade, actually vowing to lead an investigation into potential eavesdropping abuses to assure that it would never happen again. Atrios notes just some of the points that makes her behavior incomparably shameless.

But all that said, nothing can top this quote from Harman, uttered near the end of an AIPAC panel discussion after she realized that nobody was going to ask her about this matter and thus brought it up herself. As reported by a pro-AIPAC blogger in attendance:

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) said she is "not a victim" but a "warrior on behalf of our Constitution and against abuse of power" . . . .

But almost 40 minutes into the discussion Sunday morning, as moderator Dan Senor started to wrap up and asked the final question of the four panelists, no one had even mentioned the issue. So Harman took the matter into her own hands -- winding up with a spirited defense of the Constitution and AIPAC.

Jane Harman is a warrior on behalf of the Constitution and against abuse of power -- that's the same Jane Harman who tried to bully The New York Times out of writing about Bush's illegal spying program, who succeeded in pressuring them not to publish their story until after Bush was re-elected, who repeatedly proclaimed the program to be "legal and necessary" once it was revealed, who called the whistle-blowers "despicable", who went on Meet the Press and expressed receptiveness to a criminal investigation of The New York Times for publishing the story, who led the way in supporting the Fourth-Amendment-gutting and safeguard-destroying FISA Amendments Act of 2008, and who demanded that telecoms be retroactively immunized for breaking multiple laws by allowing government spying on their customers without warrants of any kind.

That is who is a self-proclaimed "warrior on behalf of our Constitution and against abuse of power." How can that ever be topped? Once Harman is done with her investigation into eavesdropping abuses, here are some other events that can begin:

* a full-scale inquiry into detainee abuses, led by Dick Cheney;

* a bipartisan, Blue Ribbon panel on the corrupting influences of money in government, co-chaired by Rod Blagojevich and Jack Abramoff;

* the launching of a new organization to combat the reckless use of anonymous sources in journalism, headed by Judy Miller and Politico."

more

[Howardx]

7. harman is a great example

of how penetrated congress is by israeli intelligence, talking quid pro quo with a suspected israeli spy is just "talking to advocacy groups"

its actually treason jane.

[Sezu]

8. tin foil hat time. n/t