In a not very surprise revelation it turns out illegally wiretapped congressscritters were blackmailed into defending the illegal wiretap programme:
Rep. Jane Harman , the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington.
Harman was recorded saying she would “waddle into” the AIPAC case “if you think it’ll make a difference,” according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript.
In exchange for Harman’s help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, which the Democrats were heavily favored to win.
Seemingly wary of what she had just agreed to, according to an official who read the NSA transcript, Harman hung up after saying, “This conversation doesn’t exist.”
[…]
And that, contrary to reports that the Harman investigation was dropped for “lack of evidence,” it was Alberto R. Gonzales, President Bush’s top counsel and then attorney general, who intervened to stop the Harman probe.
Why? Because, according to three top former national security officials, Gonzales wanted Harman to be able to help defend the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was about break in The New York Times and engulf the White House.
It’s a clusterfuck of corruption with members of congress lobbying on behalve of dodgy organisations to get nice jobs in return and a even more corrupt administration using this corruption to help legalise their own crimes. Surprising? Not very. The deep structures of the state — the intelligence services and permanent bureaucracies — have always used these methods.
Jay Vos
April 21, 2009 at 4:14 pm“…clusterfuck of corruption…” Damn, you hit the nail right on the fuckin’ head. I’ve been following this peripherally, grateful for your post. Thanks.
Palau
April 22, 2009 at 3:49 amI remember commenting at Digby ‘what the fuck is in their NSA files?’ following a particularly egregious rollover by Democrats in the long, long ago before the Iraq invasion
Pelosi the torture enabler who also knew and approved the spying is now Speaker. Complicit too (with his chairmanship of the committee that approved immunity for the telecoms working hand in hand with the NSA and his generous campaign support from the comms industry) is now Vice President Joe Biden, formerly Mr. Viacom. Maybe it’s time to ask “What’s in their NSA files?” again.
Any Democrat who takes money from the telecoms or security industry is also complicit in spying on their fellow citizens. The rot goes very, very deep.