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Politics | 04/24/2009 10:30 am

Bush Administration Acted on Harman's Behalf in Wiretap Scandal

By The Staff at wowOwow.com
© AP

A scandalous storm continues to build around Democratic lawmaker Jane Harman, whom the NSA caught on tape agreeing to help two Israeli lobbyists accused of espionage in exchange for political help.

Though the CIA found Harman’s conversation egregious enough to inform congressional officials, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told CIA Director Porter Goss to hold off on spreading word. Why? Because Gonzales needed Harman’s help in squashing a New York Times story on the NSA’s illegal wiretapping program, for which she was meant to help build Congressional support. In addition, Mr. Gonzales apparently wanted to keep Harman in the dark so that the FBI could take a look at the matter without tipping her off, say anonymous officials to The New York Times:

But Mr. Gonzales’s principal motive in delaying a briefing for Congressional leaders, the person said, was to keep Ms. Harman from learning of the investigation before she could be interviewed by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A spokesman for Ms. Harman said the congresswoman had never been interviewed by the bureau.

The former officials, the spokesman and the person familiar with Mr. Gonzales’s account all insisted on anonymity, saying that the issues surrounding the government wiretaps were too sensitive to discuss publicly.

More than that, CIA officials allegedly provided Harman with talking points she was meant to use in pressuring the Times into not publishing the aforementioned wiretap story. A spokesman from Harman’s office says they have "absolutely no recollection of any talking points for a phone call that took place five years ago."

7 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

SJMorgan
Whatever the motive for delay…she still screwed up!
By SJMorgan on 04/24/2009 10:42 am
CHardy

Why are the same stories over and over? 

By CHardy on 04/24/2009 10:45 am
SG3
My what a web King George administration wove.
By SG3 on 04/24/2009 12:10 pm
fp1
And we haven’t seen the last of it by a long shot.
By fp1 on 04/24/2009 12:16 pm
RudiG
You lie down with dogs…
By RudiG on 04/24/2009 5:43 pm
JackieThomas
George Washington on Israel

“A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils.  Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.” ~George Washington, ~page 269 of The 5000 Year Leap.

 
“The nation which indulges toward another habitual hatred or habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interests." ~ George Washington


"Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none." ~ Thomas Jefferson
By JackieThomas on 04/25/2009 1:48 pm
MelBerg
Jackie, it is to bad that we don’t listen to and live by what the founding fathers said, we would be much better off if we did.
By MelBerg on 04/26/2009 7:37 am