Former pro-Israel lobbyist sues federal prosecutor for defamation
Monday, March 23, 2009 E-Mail this story Free Headline Alerts
WASHINGTON — A senior federal prosecutor pressed a top pro-Israel lobby to fire its foreign policy chief, according a civil suit filed by Steven Rosen.
Rosen, for decades as the top foreign policy analyst at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee said federal prosecutor Paul McNulty pressured the organization to dismiss Rosen in 2005 as part of a government campaign to prosecute two senior AIPAC officers with espionage.
The civil suit, filed in Washington on March 2, said McNulty threatened to involve AIPAC in the spy trial unless it fired both Rosen and Keith Weissman.
"We could make real progress and get AIPAC out from under all of us," McNulty was quoted by Rosen's suit as saying.
The quote stemmed from a motion by Rosen and Weissman to have their criminal case — on charges of accepting classified material from a Defense Department official — dismissed in 2007. The motion quoted attorneys for AIPAC as saying that the U.S. government threatened to charge the lobbying group with violating the 1917 Espionage Act unless the two lobbyists were fired and their funding for legal fees severed. Although AIPAC denied government pressure, presiding Judge T.S. Ellis said the defense claim was credible.
The criminal trial of Rosen and Weissman, postponed several times, has been scheduled for June 2. The civil suit was set for June 5.
AIPAC ended up firing Rosen and Weissman for what a spokesman said was their failure to "comport with standards that AIPAC expects of all its employees." Rosen's civil suit has sought $21 million from AIPAC for defamation. Weissman, Rosen's co-defendant in criminal proceedings taking place in U.S. district court in Alexandria, Va., did not join the defamation suit.
"Should it come to trial, the civil case promises revelations of how AIPAC works its sensitive relations with the executive branch and allegedly capitulated to government pressure to fire Rosen and Keith Weissman, its then-Iran analyst," the Jewish Telegraphic Agency said.
The Rosen suit also lists Patrick Dorton, hired from the outside to be spokesman for AIPAC during the prosecution of Rosen and Weissman. Others named in the suit were AIPAC executive director Howard Kohr as well as a group of past presidents.
"To be effective, organizations engaged in advocacy in the field of foreign policy need to have earlier and more detailed information about policy developments inside the government and diplomatic issues with other countries than is normally available to or needed by the wider public," the suit said.
Rosen has returned to a high profile role within the pro-Israel community. He has launched a blog that monitors the Middle East policy of President Barack Obama and criticized the appointment of former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia Charles Freeman as chairman of the National Intelligence Council.
"Agencies of the government sometimes choose to provide such additional information about policy and diplomatic issues to these outside interest groups in order to win support for what they are doing among important domestic constituencies and to send messages to select target audiences," the civil suit said.
Rosen and Weissman were indicted in 2005 on charges of receiving U.S. classified information on Iran. The indictment came a year after an FBI raid on AIPAC offices in August 2004.
The civil suit said AIPAC defended Rosen and Weissman following the FBI raid and gave Rosen a bonus. But in March 2005, both men were fired and AIPAC stopped paying their legal fees.
"Through their publication of the falsehoods about Mr. Rosen, defendant achieved an increase of millions of dollars in revenue for AIPAC, whereas had they told the truth, AIPAC might well have suffered a significant decrease in fund-raising, as well as an increase in legal costs," the suit said.