Watchdog Group Requests Investigations of Harman

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which advocates tougher ethics rules for government officials, wants Congress and the Justice Department to look into a tangle of allegations involving Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.).

Congressional Quarterly, citing unnamed national security sources, reported Sunday night that then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales halted an investigation of Harman because Gonzales saw her, as the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, as an important ally in defending the Bush administration’s surveillance policies. The Justice Department had been investigating Harman for what CQ describes as an effort by her to interfere with an investigation of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee.

Authorities recorded Harman telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would “waddle into” the AIPAC case “if you think it’ll make a difference,” according to the report. In exchange, the agent promised to help Harman win the chairmanship of the Intelligence Committee. Harman ultimately did not get the chairmanship, and the Justice Department did not drop its AIPAC investigation.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW, wrote letters today to the Office of Congressional Ethics and to the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, asking them to examine Harman’s actions and to find out why the Justice Department dropped its investigation of her.

“If this case was dropped for political reasons and not based on the facts and applicable law, the American people deserve to know,” Sloan wrote the Justice Department.

A spokesman for the Justice Department had no comment. The Office of Congressional Ethics and Harman’s office did not return calls requesting comment.

Harman practiced law in D.C. for two decades, including five years when she was of counsel at what was then Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue. Now a resident of Venice, Calif., she won election to the House in 2000.

Comments

[Diogenes]

This gives the story a dispassionate
context: res ipsa...

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7060/is_11_7/ai_n28529262/

[Chris]

Jail time for Jane Harmon. She committed TREASON.

If Obama does not PROSECUTE Jane Harmon, then the fix is in.

If Real Change is here, than Jane Harmon should serve 20 years in prison for betraying America!

[ted]

Someone must have tipped off Pelosi about this. That why she didn't get the chairmanship. This reminds me of the Clinton-Lewinsky affair. I think the story about this came out because some one in the intelligence community didn't want Clinton blackmailed by the Israelis.k