FBI Investigates AIPAC Effort to Skew NYT Iran Coverage

See posts below for links and extracts. This appears to have been an effort by AIPAC to cultivate another Judy Miller-type agent of influence at The Times to plant phony IRAN WMD stories.

The Times is burying this at the bottom of its on-line National page.

Go to bugmenot.com for a login.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 — Federal agents contacted two reporters from The New York Times on Wednesday seeking information about a former Pentagon official and two representatives of a pro-Israel lobbying group who have been at the center of a criminal investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of classified information.

The requests were made to David S. Cloud and Steven R. Weisman, reporters in The Times's Washington bureau. Mr. Cloud was asked about possible contacts he had in the spring of 2003 with representatives of the lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. At the time, Mr. Cloud was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

Michael Kortan, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, would not comment on the phone calls on grounds that the requests for information were part of a continuing inquiry.

A government official who has been briefed on the matter said that agents had contacted reporters from several news organizations.

Self-delete

:toast:

Heh, thanks, I'm actually a lurker though, I've been here for a while.

The requests were made to David S. Cloud and Steven R. Weisman, reporters in The Times's Washington bureau. Mr. Cloud was asked about possible contacts he had in the spring of 2003 with representatives of the lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. At the time, Mr. Cloud was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

Michael Kortan, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, would not comment on the phone calls on grounds that the requests for information were part of a continuing inquiry.

A government official who has been briefed on the matter said that agents had contacted reporters from several news organizations.

The agents, the official said, are trying to determine whether reporters received national security information intended to influence their reporting on the Middle East.

The implication here is that there were some classified US documents about Iran (perhaps obtained from Franklin) that the AIPAC staffers were trying to leak through reporters at the NYT.

The only question is, was this classified material that Franklin himself had salted into Pentagon files at the behest of his handler, the Mossad Chief of Station at the Israeli Embassy in DC? See, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/6/15/12176/9231 ; also see Frabklin Indictment, pp 23-24, para 6. FYI, "FO3" is Naor Gilon, the former Mossad chief who fled the country after word of the FBI's investigation into Franklin and AIPAC was first leaked during the summer of 2004. http://physics911.net/franklinpdf2.pdf

The Times reporters were regarded as witnesses, the official said, rather than subjects or targets of the investigation.

The official added that the inquiry was being conducted in compliance with Justice Department guidelines that require legal approval before journalists are contacted.

The requests follow the Jan. 23 sentencing of Lawrence A. Franklin, a former Pentagon analyst and expert on Iran. Mr. Franklin's sentencing, to a term of more than 12 years after a guilty plea, refocused the case on two former Aipac officials, Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, who are scheduled to go on trial in April. Each has pleaded not guilty.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=296760&mesg_id=304243

look at article 4 from the J. Post.