Captain's Quarters -

The central figure in the AIPAC espionage scandal has accepted a plea bargain and will testify against the operatives that passed classified intelligence to Israel, according to the Washington Post and the New York Times today. Lawrence Franklin has all but signed the paperwork, his attorney said, and the Post's sources confirm his agreement to testify against his co-conspirators: A Defense Department analyst charged with passing government secrets to two employees of an influential pro-Israel lobbying group plans to plead guilty at a hearing next week, court officials announced yesterday. Lawrence A. Franklin, 58, will enter his plea in U.S. District Court in Alexandria on Wednesday, the court said. Sources familiar with the case said Franklin is expected to plead guilty to conspiracy and possibly to other counts. He also is planning to resume his cooperation with prosecutors, they said. ... If Franklin enters a plea, it will be a...

George Soros wrote an article for the New York Review of Books that attacked the US for its pro-Israeli policies. The Democratic Party underwriter made clear that he felt the US should start dealing directly with Hamas, despite its existence as a terrorist organization, and complained about the influence of AIPAC. That created a problem for Barack Obama, who has received support from Soros, as well as many other Democrats: Leading Democrats, including Senator Obama of Illinois, are distancing themselves from an essay published this week by one of their party's leading financiers that called for the Democratic Party to "liberate" itself from the influence of the pro-Israel lobby. The article, by George Soros, published in the New York Review of Books, asserts that America should pressure Israel to negotiate with the Hamas-led unity government in the Palestinian territories regardless of whether Hamas recognizes the right of the Jewish state...

The Israeli-American relationship will go through even more strain after federal prosecutors announced indictments for two more former officials from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on charges of transmitting classified information overseas. The two, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, join Larry Franklin as targets of the investigation, and Israel now acknowledges that investigators have formally contacted their embassy for further probing into the matter: Two former employees of an influential pro-Israel lobbying group were indicted yesterday on charges that they illegally received and passed on classified information to foreign officials and reporters over a period of five years, part of a case that has complicated relations between the United States and one of its closest allies. Although no foreign government is named in the indictment, U.S. government sources have identified Israel as the country at the center of the probe. The Israeli Embassy in Washington also confirmed yesterday...

Michelle Malkin has been following the case of Larry Franklin, who had been accused of stealing classified information on Iran from his post at the Office of Special Plans and passing it to AIPAC, a pro-Israeli group. This case has received little fanfare from the media and the blogosphere, probably in part because of the Sandy Berger case and the strange unwillingness on the part of the government to aggressively pursue Berger's violations, especially before the election. However, Michelle points out a Newsday report from yesterday which shows why the Franklin case should be making more of a splash. It turns out that not only was the material classified, it actually had one of the highest possible classifications -- Top Secret/Compartmentalized, also known as Codeword classification, meaning that the information directly impacts the national security of the United States: An analyst in a controversial Pentagon intelligence office was charged yesterday...

Outrage over leaks by government employees is no longer limited to the executive branch. A federal judge in New York has ordered the Department of Justice to discover how CBS News learned of the FBI's espionage investigation into AIPAC: A federal judge has ordered a Justice Department probe into how CBS News obtained a story two years ago disclosing an FBI investigation into a pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Judge Thomas Ellis III issued the order last week in connection with the prosecution of two former Aipac employees, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman. The two men are facing criminal charges of conspiracy to acquire and disclose classified information. Judge Ellis instructed the Justice Department "to conduct an investigation into the identity of any government employee responsible for the August 2004 disclosure to CBS News of info. related to the investigation of defendants/whether the investigation relied on...

The government can prosecute anyone connected with the release of classified information, even if the suspects hold no clearance, a federal judge ruled in the AIPAC case. While the ruling primarily affects the lobbyists involved in the espionage investigation, it has far-reaching implications for others, particularly reporters: In a momentous expansion of the government's authority to regulate public disclosure of national security information, a federal court ruled that even private citizens who do not hold security clearances can be prosecuted for unauthorized receipt and disclosure of classified information. The ruling (pdf) by Judge T.S. Ellis, III, denied a motion to dismiss the case of two former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) who were charged under the Espionage Act with illegally receiving and transmitting classified information. ... The Judge ruled that any First Amendment concerns regarding freedom of speech involving national defense information can be superseded by...