Another huge, embarrassing failure for the government. The decision today to drop espionage charges against former American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbyists Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman was an admission by the U.S. that it couldn’t win. Read the government’s motion here ^[1].

An appeals court decision had allowed the defense to use classified information at trial, and the U.S. didn’t want to go there. Equally difficult: A lower court had ordered the government to prove the lobbyists had intended to harm U.S. interests when they disclosed Pentagon information about Iraq to the media and an Israeli diplomat.

A trial had been scheduled for June 2 before Judge Judge T.S. Ellis III in the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria. Likely witnesses would have included former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley. Read the Washington Post story here ^[2], the New York Times story here. ^[3] Read a Washington Jewish Week profile here ^[4]of Weissman’s defense attorney Baruch Weiss ^[5], a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York now with Arent Fox LLP in Washington.