Congressional Quarterly‘s Jeff Stein on Antiwar Radio

On Tuesday Scott Horton interviewed Congressional Quarterly’s Jeff Stein for Antiwar Radio about his explosive new story about Rep. Jane Harman’s deal with an agent of the government of Israel to try to put pressure on the Department of Justice and/or the White House to have espionage charges against Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, formerly of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, reduced.

The Congresswoman from California was apparently picked up on a phone tap by the National Security Agency, which was investigating the Israeli agent under Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court authorization. Harman allegedly promised to “waddle in” to the Rosen-Weissman case on behalf of the defense if the Israeli agent would use his influence to push then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi into making Harman chair of the House Intelligence Committee after the upcoming election which her party was widely expected to win.

In a further twist, the reason the investigation never proceeded was apparently not due to a “lack of evidence” as reported by Time magazine back in 2006. Instead it was thwarted even before it could begin by then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who, mindful of the then-impending New York Times piece about the illegal warrantless wiretapping program, said he “needed Jane” to help cover for the administration when the storm broke.

That, of course, is exactly what she did, as discussed in the interview.