A former Federal Bureau of Investigation research specialist who says he was fired after coming under false suspicion in an espionage-related investigation of a pro-Israel group has sued to clear his name.

The plaintiff, who filed as John Doe in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, says in the Jan. 7 complaint he was fired in 2008 in connection with the probe of two American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbyists, Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman.

The former analyst says he believes he was targeted because he’d faxed unclassified Foreign Broadcast Information Service documents to AIPAC, although he said in the complaint he wasn’t given a reason for his termination beyond unspecified security concerns.

The government in May dropped espionage charges against the AIPAC lobbyists, after an appeals court ruled the defense could use classified information at trial. The U.S. also faced an uphill battle in complying with a lower court order to prove the AIPAC lobbyists had intended to harm U.S. interests when they disclosed Pentagon information about Iraq to the media and an Israeli diplomat.

The former FBI analyst who got caught up in the affair also alleges the Bureau targeted him because of his Jewish faith, and that his First and Fifth Amendment rights were violated when he was fired and stripped of his security clearance without due process. He seeks at least $201,000 in damages, reinstatement to his job, and the right to a “name-clearing hearing,” among other redress.

The plaintiff worked on Capitol Hill for two House members and a U.S. senator, then as a Department of State intelligence research specialist from 1999 to 2003, the complaint says. He was on contract with the Department of Homeland Security before starting with the FBI in 2004, the complaint says. He specialized in Palestinian terrorist front groups in the U.S. and terrorist financing.

The FBI placed him on unpaid administrative leave on Oct. 29, 2005 and terminated him in 2008. He had held a security clearance at the Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information level, the complaint says. He is represented by Washington, D.C., attorney Mark Zaid.

Mary Jacoby contributed to this report, which was corrected to reflect that the former FBI researcher’s complaint says the Bureau did not give a reason for his termination.

Laura Rozen at Foreign Policy’s blog has the scoop. The irrepressible Davis, a partner at the Orrick law firm, made his name as media adviser to President Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The hiring of Davis signals that Harman intends to hit back hard on the story, in which she reportedly was caught on a government wiretap offering  to help two pro-Israel lobbyists accused of spying. It’s been a PR disaster for her.

Rozen also draws our attention to a discrepancy in the reported record about whether it was an NSA or FBI wiretap that picked up Harman’s conversation with the Israeli agent. CQ broke the story, saying it was an NSA wiretap, but The Washington Post reported April 22nd that it was the FBI monitoring the conversation.

CQ’s SpyTalk columnist Jeff Stein reports that Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) was overheard on a 2005 NSA wiretap telling a suspected agent for Israel that she would lobby the Justice Department to drop espionage charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee.

Jane Harman (courtesy U.S. House)

Allegations that pro-Israel lobbyists had tried to help Harman win the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee by raising money for then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) were widely reported in 2006. But Stein advances the ball by disclosing the previously unreported NSA wiretap, in which Harman reportedly said she would “waddle into” the AIPAC case “if you think it’ll make a difference.” Stein cites “two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript” as his sources.

Harman issued a strenuous denial, calling the claim “outrageous” and “false,” Stein reports.

Justice Department attorneys in the intelligence and public corruption units were prepared to open an investigation, Stein reports. The DOJ attorneys had even prepared an application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for electronic surveillance of Harman. But then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales intervened because he needed Harman’s support (which he later received) as the New York Times was preparing to break news of the government’s warrantless wiretapping program. Stein wrote that he wasn’t able to confirm the identity of the alleged Israeli agent with whom Harman reportedly spoke.

The accounts “go a long way” toward explaining why Harman was denied chairmanship of the intelligence panel after Democrats regained control of Congress in 2006, and also why Harman didn’t get a top job at the Department of Homeland Security or the Central Intelligence Agency in the Obama administration, Stein writes. But the DOJ went ahead and charged AIPAC officials Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman in 2005 with espionage for allegedly passing Pentagon documents to Israel and the news media. View documents in their case, which is on appeal, here.

In related news, Israel’s new foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, recently picked an Israeli diplomat who was involved in the case as his chief of staff.

UPDATE FROM THE HOTLINE’S BLOGOMETER: Liberal bloggers (Marshall, Attaturk, Serwer, DougJ) are buzzing about a new CQ article alleging that Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) was caught on wiretap promising favors to a suspected Israeli agent. Several lefty bloggers (BooMan, O’Connor) are demanding that a progressive candidate challenge Harman in the 36th district’s 2010 primary. Several conservative bloggers (Malkin, Morrissey) are also taking notice of the allegations about Harman.