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Lobbyists' Trial Could Embarrass Top U.S. Envoy

(Newsweek) Michael Isikoff - The upcoming trial of two pro-Israel lobbyists accused of sharing classified U.S. government information with Israeli diplomats is causing anxiety within the State Department in the wake of a subpoena to David Satterfield, a top U.S. diplomat who now serves as Washington's deputy ambassador to Iraq. Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, both of whom worked for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), have pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to communicate national defense information. The Justice Department is prosecuting the lobbyists under the World War I-era Espionage Act - a rarely used and vaguely-worded law that prohibits the dissemination of classified "national defense information." The case is unusual because the persons charged are not U.S. government officials but private lobbyists who could only have learned whatever classified information they had from others inside the government. Some legal commentators have cited the use of the law in these circumstances as unprecedented. Two legal sources close to the case confirmed that Satterfield is the anonymous official referred to in the indictment as "U.S. government official - 2" (USGO-2) who had two meetings with Rosen in early 2002 in which classified information allegedly was discussed. Abbe Lowell, the defense lawyer for Rosen, asks how can his client, a private citizen, be charged with disseminating classified information when the government official who allegedly gave it to him in the first place is not charged at all? Like many others - including lobbyists, journalists, and policy analysts - Rosen and Weissman had frequent conversations with U.S. government officials about national security issues that may have touched on classified matters. But the burden should be on the government officials to protect the information - not private citizens who receive it, the lawyers argue.
2006-03-21 00:00:00
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