“Who else in Congress is directly working under Israeli direction on Israeli and against U.S. interest?” (b)
Let me count the ways! Both California Senators, Senator Schumer, Secy of State Clinton, VP Biden, Presidential Chief of Staff Emanuel. . .. The question is, who isn’t?
Of course, the majority aren’t needed to take a lead role — they are merely told when to go along.

Posted by: senecal | Apr 20 2009 15:45 utc | 4

Right after the election she was promoting herself to be selected for head of the CIA.

Posted by: Maxcrat | Apr 20 2009 16:56 utc | 6

I can’t understand why everyone is calling this a quid pro quo situation. My knowledge of Harman and the Israeli lobby would have me believt that working in each others interest to be their natural course of action. I don’t think there would have to be any special arrangement to make this happen.

Posted by: Sgt Dan | Apr 20 2009 17:09 utc | 8

Via TPM – the JTA’s take on the article.

Posted by: Sgt Dan | Apr 20 2009 18:25 utc | 10

Another question is: Who benefits from the additional information in this disclosure (via anonymous sources)– and why now?
See Talk Left post and comments.
I’m not defending Harmon; just wondering why, who, what, why, etc. Was she set up? Has BushCo collected records on all Congress Critters? Does it explain why the Dems are so reluctant to, say, really investigate the torture chronology and players or, even, what’s really gone on with Big Bankster Boiz and the financial Big $hit Pile and Meltdown? Are they all compromised? As noted above, the appearance of unethical or illegal behavior can sometimes take down a pol — if the MCM* plays along….
Is this a warning from the current Unitary Executive that Big Brother has been and is watching the pols?
*MCM–Mainstream Corporate Media

Posted by: jawbone | Apr 20 2009 19:50 utc | 12

i guess i am not the only one who figured that out. i just googled obstruction of justice and jane harmon. just one

Jane Harman is also in a little hot water, as what she apparently proposed to do sounds a lot like obstruction of justice. She won’t be able to count on the support of the House leadership because of her enmity with Speaker Pelosi. Jane Harmon’s continued membership in the Congress is in doubt. A prosecution may be in her future.
Despite the fact that Jane Harman got caught, this kind of influence peddling goes on as standard operating procedure in the Congress. Members of Congress profit by it and by and large get away with it. The line between proper constituent service and unethical or even illegal influence peddling gets blurred, especially in the hot house, inside the beltway culture.

here’s another regarding the nsa story

However, if Fredo did what is alleged here, well, in that case I am qualified to say that that sounds one hell of a lot like obstruction of justice. Killing an FBI investigation of a legislator because he – and the White House – needed that legislator in its corner because a newspaper was about to break a big and unflattering story is about as obstruction-of-justicey as you can get, innit?

that makes 2 cases of tampering.

Posted by: annie | Apr 20 2009 20:19 utc | 14

“If a US citizen at home (which is what Josh Marshall at TPM thinks– thinks it was Haim Saban) then the wiretap surely was part of the illegal program.”
Newshoggers, Crooks and Liars, etc have parsed the statements down and it appers that Harman, was caught, on a FISA Warrant approved, (you know, the old way of doing business) on a Foreign Agent, (Haim Saban).
Just because you are a US Citizen, doesn’t mean you arn’t a foreign agent.
I would suspect that this is an Obama Administration shot across the bow, of AIPIAC.

Posted by: Jimbo | Apr 20 2009 21:30 utc | 16

i screwed up on the italics. naor was the agent franklin was accused of passing the classified information to. if this is who she was bargaining w/it is in the major toxic arena.
maybe harmon is a spy for israel!

Posted by: annie | Apr 20 2009 21:49 utc | 18

so far, nothing I’ve read suggests the “all-powerful” Israeli lobby tried to compel Harman to do anything against her will. And the question is how many other congressmen are in the business of voluntarily pimping America for their own gain ? Are they really as helpless against the lobby as the the story-line goes ?
we’ve gone back & forth on this board on the matter of whether its the tail wagging the dog ? And if it turns out its the fleas wagging the dog, we’re going to have to start that debate all over again.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Apr 21 2009 1:07 utc | 20

I’m not defending Harman by any means. But JTA Reporter Ron Kampeas Says She’s Been Set Up
Harman was in the room on the day the Gang Of Eight were briefed on torture. Kampeas suggests she was the lone dissenting voice in the room, and that Porter Goss took exception to her dissent.
Gonzo is alleged to have meeting notes on that meeting, which is being bandied about by Marcy Wheeler and others (I have total respect for Mz. Wheeler, BTW) as being blackmail material.
I myself have long said (perhaps not in here) Pelosi and Reid took impeachment off the table because they were, as were the Gang Of Eight and more, complicit in ginning up the war with Iraq, complicit in condoning torture, complicit in condoning WireTapping. They are guilty, so they can’t bring charges up on Bushco’s.
WRT Mz. Harman, who is an OBVIOUS shill for Israel and AIPAC, who knows who’s looking to bring her down . . . Goss and the Bushie’s letting Obama’s Admin know they got dirt to still use?
The trial for Rozen and Weissman is set for June, it’s a disaster case, and being tagged as an intelligence disaster by over reaching, is Goss seeking revenge? More From Kampeas.
Who knows what’s afoot, or at stake. For sure, though, this is the stuff if insider beltway intrigue . . . and that’s usually white washed over and we the people rarely see the actual belly of the beasts involved.

Posted by: larue | Apr 21 2009 3:16 utc | 22

This is a question.
I wonder if the campaign contributions are as persuasive as Harmon business relationships. It is not difficult to imagine a number of non-biomedical clients for for their Wavemaker speech/voice signal recognition and processing technology. (additional link)
Could be just that – overactive imagination.

Posted by: rjj | Apr 21 2009 5:30 utc | 24

ERROR @24:WAVEMAKER LINK

Posted by: rjj | Apr 21 2009 6:26 utc | 26

This link could provide background for the “re-awakening” of the Harman case. Perhaps Hillary and Obama are sending Binny a message? This is only speculation, of course, not even rising to the status of conjecture.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Apr 21 2009 7:42 utc | 28

This is only speculation, of course, not even rising to the status of conjecture.

The I-Don’t-Know spectrum is my zone. But what is the order of regression from conjecturing … speculating … guessing … to … making-shit-up? What precedes conjecture?
It is important to be correct.

Posted by: rjj | Apr 21 2009 13:02 utc | 30

Laura Rozen

Posted by: rjj | Apr 21 2009 15:58 utc | 32

Steven Aftergood at FAS sees nothing nefarious in the whole thing. The only criminal deed, he opines, may have been the leaks to Jeff Stein and the NYT.
And, remarkable and recommendable, Philip Zelikow (Rice counselor) on the issue: The OLC “torture memos”: thoughts from a dissenter

The focus on water-boarding misses the main point of the program.
Which is that it was a program. Unlike the image of using intense physical coercion as a quick, desperate expedient, the program developed “interrogation plans” to disorient, abuse, dehumanize, and torment individuals over time.
The plan employed the combined, cumulative use of many techniques of medically-monitored physical coercion. Before getting to water-boarding, the captive had already been stripped naked, shackled to ceiling chains keeping him standing so he cannot fall asleep for extended periods, hosed periodically with cold water, slapped around, jammed into boxes, etc. etc. Sleep deprivation is most important.
…
Had a serious analysis been conducted beforehand (it apparently was not), my rough guess is that it might have found that physical coercion can break people faster, with some tradeoff in degraded and less reliable results.
Which underscores the importance of moral analysis. There is an elementary distinction, too often lost, between the moral (and policy) question — “What should we do?” — and the legal question: “What can we do?” We live in a policy world too inclined to turn lawyers into surrogate priests granting a form of absolution. “The lawyers say it’s OK.” Well, not really. They say it might be legal. They don’t know about OK.
…
in 2005, I circulated an opposing view of the legal reasoning. My bureaucratic position, as counselor to the secretary of state, didn’t entitle me to offer a legal opinion. But I felt obliged to put an alternative view in front of my colleagues at other agencies, warning them that other lawyers (and judges) might find the OLC views unsustainable. My colleagues were entitled to ignore my views. They did more than that: The White House attempted to collect and destroy all copies of my memo. I expect that one or two are still at least in the State Department’s archives.
Stated in a shorthand way, mainly for the benefit of other specialists who work these issues, my main concerns were:
* the case law on the “shocks the conscience” standard for interrogations would proscribe the CIA’s methods;
* the OLC memo basically ignored standard 8th Amendment “conditions of confinement” analysis (long incorporated into the 5th amendment as a matter of substantive due process and thus applicable to detentions like these). That case law would regard the conditions of confinement in the CIA facilities as unlawful.
* the use of a balancing test to measure constitutional validity (national security gain vs. harm to individuals) is lawful for some techniques, but other kinds of cruel treatment should be barred categorically under U.S. law — whatever the alleged gain.
The underlying absurdity of the administration’s position can be summarized this way. Once you get to a substantive compliance analysis for “cruel, inhuman, and degrading” you get the position that the substantive standard is the same as it is in analogous U.S. constitutional law. So the OLC must argue, in effect, that the methods and the conditions of confinement in the CIA program could constitutionally be inflicted on American citizens in a county jail.
In other words, Americans in any town of this country could constitutionally be hung from the ceiling naked, sleep deprived, water-boarded, and all the rest — if the alleged national security justification was compelling. I did not believe our federal courts could reasonably be expected to agree with such a reading of the Constitution.

Posted by: b | Apr 21 2009 18:15 utc | 34