AIPAC defense team to subpoena Rice

By NATHAN GUTTMAN
Washington

A US district court Friday allowed the defense in the trial of two former AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) employees to ask Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to testify in the trial, after they claimed that Rice had leaked to the AIPAC staffers the same information that they had received from a former Pentagon employee and for which they are being prosecuted.

Judge T.S. Ellis of the US District Court in Alexandria Virginia granted the defense's motion to subpoena Rice and three other government officials: retired general Anthony Zinni who was the administration's special envoy to the Middle East; William Burns, who was assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs and is now the US ambassador to Moscow; and David Satterfield, who was Burns's deputy and is now the Deputy Chief of Mission in Baghdad.

The decision to allow the defense to proceed with the subpoena process does not ensure that the government officials will actually appear in court, but it does give the defense permission to contact the State Department and put in a request for the testimony.

In the hearing, attorney Abbe Lowell, representing former AIPAC staffer Steve Rosen, told the court that Rice's testimony is needed since she had met with Rosen in the past, while serving as National Security Adviser, and conveyed to him the same information that he and his colleague Keith Weissman later received from former Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin.

Rosen and Weissman were indicted for communicating national defense information which they got from Franklin to Israeli diplomats and members of the press. Franklin signed a plea agreement with the government and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

US attorney Kevin DiGregory asked the court not to grant the defense's request to summon the government officials, and denied Lowell's claim that Rice had leaked information to Rosen.

The State Department denied the allegations Rice herself had leaked classified information to the former AIPAC staffer, and spokesman Sean McCormack said that "the claims by these defense lawyers are utterly false." Jewish activists in Washington speculated over the weekend that the meeting between Rosen and Rice, who was at the time National Security Adviser, was not a private conversation but rather a routine meeting Rice held with a group of Jewish activists.

"These are usual meetings that take place from time to time in which we discuss issues regarding the US policy on matters we are concerned about," said the Jewish activist.

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