Pirate's Cove

I really wish those in the MSM would learn what the difference between a wiretap and electronic surveillance is: Wiretap Recorded Rep. Harman Promising to Intervene for AIPAC

Rep. Jane Harman , the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department to reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington.

Harman was recorded saying she would “waddle into” the AIPAC case “if you think it’ll make a difference,” according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript.

In exchange for Harman’s help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, which the Democrats were heavily favored to win.

Seemingly wary of what she had just agreed to, according to an official who read the NSA transcript, Harman hung up after saying, “This conversation doesn’t exist.”

She denies the conversation, which would have been picked up using other means than a person going down to the landline switch box and actually tapping it, but multiple other, though anonymous, sources, it happened, it was caught, and she is lying through her teeth.

Justice Department attorneys in the intelligence and public corruption units who read the transcripts decided that Harman had committed a “completed crime,” a legal term meaning that there was evidence that she had attempted to complete it, three former officials said.

Supposedly, according to the story, all investigations were squashed because AG Alberto Gonzales wanted her help in attempting to get the NY Times to not reveal the Terrorist Surveillance Program. And she tried. If true, this goes beyond normal politics, and into the realm of blackmail. The ends do not justify the means, even in trying to get the Grey Lady to not publish the story. The investigation into Harmon’s conduct should have gone forth. Yes, sometimes distasteful things must be done in the name of national security, but not dismissing what could have been a criminal investigation.

Of course, many of the Usual Useful Idiots are questioning the timing, failing to understand the most basic way the NSA would gather intelligence, including monitoring the communications of a known Israeli agent, and barely noting Harmon’s illegal activity.

Michelle Malkin says “This all reeks badly. Harman and Gonzales have a lot of explaining to do.”

More: so, I am checking what so many on the Left have to say, and, as expected, they seem to be mostly, if not solely, finding fault with “the Bushies,” as uber-conservative (only in his mind) Excitable Andy writes, as well as completely missing that there was a FISA warrant to monitor the communications of the Israeli agent. Also, they are now digging for ways to find Harmon completely innocent. The operative word would be “corruption.”

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU