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.

Rep. Jane Harman released a letter today from the Justice Department stating she is not a target of any criminal inquiry, the New York Times reported. The California Democrat and former House Intelligence Committee member reportedly had been overheard on a 2005 government wiretap offering to help two pro-Israel lobbyists who’d been charged with espionage. CQ’s Jeff Stein broke that story.

Boy, that whole AIPAC spy thing really did fall apart. In May, the government dropped the charges against former American Israel Public Affairs Committee officials Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman. A 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. According to news reports, Harman had been caught on the wiretap telling an unidentified agent of Israel that she would help the two AIPAC lobbyists in exchange for political fundraising asssistance.

Harman denied wrongdoing, asked why the hell the government was intercepting a member of Congress’s phone calls, and demanded the government release a transcript of the wiretasps. I don’t think those transcripts were ever released.

Lawrence Franklin (purplepinupguru.blogspot.com)

According to the Justice Department, Pentagon analyst and cooperating witness Lawrence Franklin was approached by two people who asked him to fake his own death so that he wouldn’t have to testify against two pro-Israel lobbyists charged as a result of an investigation into the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, reports Josh Gerstein at POLITICO.  Franklin had previously pled guilty in October of 2005 for his involvement in a conspiracy with AIPAC officials Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman to obtain and distribute classified information.

Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman (truthdig.com)

While the Department dropped the case against Rosen and Weissman last month, prosecutors still filed a motion to have Franklin’s initial 12 year sentence reduced.  The prosecutors stated in a brief that:

Just prior to the entry of his guilty plea, Franklin was approached by two individuals who made a pitch to Franklin about faking his death by suicide and disappearing, thus thwarting any cooperation in the case against Rosen and Weissman.

Franklin’s lawyers cited the report as more reason to reduce Franklin’s sentence.  The brief indicated that Franklin “conducted five consensually recorded telephone conversations” with one of the AIPAC lobbyists to support the investigation, and that the FBI was still “unable to obtain the requisite incriminating evidence to support a criminal investigation.”

Franklin wanted the sentence lowered to probation, while the government wanted 9 years.  Judge T.S. Ellis re-sentenced Franklin from the initial 12 years to probation and 10 months home confinement.

The Washington Post’s Walter Pincus has an interesting piece today about what defense lawyers for accused spies Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman would have unleashed at trial if prosecutors hadn’t dropped their case. 

Pincus cites a March 27 letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. from defense attorneys Abbe Lowell, John N. Nassikas III and Baruch Weiss asking the government to dismiss the charges against the former American Israel Public Affairs Committee officials. According to Pincus, the letter made these points: 

• “It was ‘ironic’ that to prove ‘the sanctity of alleged national defense information, the prosecution will risk the disclosure of classified documents . . . the defendants never saw.’”
• Lawrence Franklin, a Defense Department Iran expert who became a cooperating witness, wore a wire when he met with Weissman and ”induced him into believing that he had to communicate certain information right away in order to save innocent lives.”
• Two government officials who prosecutors said passed classified information to the defendants “have told both us and/or government investigators, that they were authorized to speak with our clients and knew full well (and even intended) that our clients pass the information on to others,” the defense lawyers wrote.