Larry Franklin, Still free.

Phil Giraldi:

"The third reason to oppose AIPAC is the corruption of the U.S. political system by the Lobby’s money and power, resulting in a bought-and-paid-for Congress and a rule of law for everyone except those guilty of crimes on behalf of Israel. Even when one is caught red-handed and confesses to spying for Israel, it is apparently no big deal, aside from the cost of a lawyer. Israel runs an extremely aggressive espionage program inside the United States involving hundreds of operatives and agents, but the only Israeli spy to be arrested, charged, and imprisoned is Jonathan Pollard, and that was over 20 years ago. Even Larry Franklin, the Pentagon "Iran expert" who spied for Israel because he believed AIPAC would get him a better job on the National Security Council, is not actually in jail in spite of his 12-year sentence. He is reportedly free due to his service as a witness in the recently terminated AIPAC Steve Rosen-Keith Weissman espionage trial.

Ben-Ami Kadish, former engineer at the Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, who was part of the same network that recruited Pollard, pleaded guilty to reduced charges in December after supplying advanced nuclear and ballistic technology to Israel. He was supposed to be sentenced in February. That did not take place, and there have been repeated delays in his court appearance. He is now supposed to be sentenced later this month, but prosecutors reportedly will not demand any jail time. He will go free, as have Rosen and Weissman, after a politically tainted prosecution that wasted millions of dollars and went nowhere. It is undeniable that the two men passed information that they knew to be classified to the Israeli embassy. Former government officials Kenneth Pollack and David Satterfield, who were identified in the indictment as having also passed classified information to AIPAC, were not even charged with a crime. Pollack, formerly on the National Security Council, is the director of research at the Saban Center of the Brookings Institution. The media suspended its coverage of the AIPAC story two days after the dismissal of charges.

Another AIPAC favorite, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), was caught on the phone trading favors with an agent working for Israeli intelligence. Her misbehavior has been completely free of consequence. A cooperative media dropped the story five days after it surfaced, and neither Democrats nor Republicans seem interested in one of their own who may have been spying for Tel Aviv. The only congressional anger over the incident is being directed at the FBI, which is in the hot seat for its alleged violation of Harman’s privacy through its completely legal wiretap."

Larry Franklin free for another month

This is from PACER

Date Filed	#	Docket Text
05/14/2009	893	NOTICE OF HEARING ON MOTION in case as to Lawrence Anthony Franklin 892 SEALED MOTION: Motion Hearing set for 6/12/2009 at 09:00 AM before District Judge T. S. Ellis III. (jlan) (Entered: 05/15/2009)
05/14/2009	892	SEALED MOTION by USA as to Lawrence Anthony Franklin. (jlan) (Entered: 05/15/2009)

I'd love a glimpse at the sealed motion.

Larry Franklin to report to prison

Josh Gerstein @ Politico:

What was more interesting is that (Judge T.S. Ellis III) said he is expecting some kind of action from the government regarding Larry Franklin, a Pentagon analyst who pled guilty early on in the case.

Ellis sentenced Franklin in 2006 to more than 12 years in prison for disclosing classified information to Rosen, Weissman and others. However, Franklin agreed to cooperate with the government and never reported to jail.

"It is further ordered that the government is directed to advise the Court, by 5:00 p.m., Thursday May 14, 2009, regarding when it contemplates filing an appropriate motion with respect to defendant Franklin," Ellis's new order says.

Lawyers involved in the case expected Franklin to seek a reduction in his sentence once the trial against Rosen and Weissman was complete. Now that the trial will never happen, it's an open question of how much of a sentence reduction Franklin will get. Presumably, it's not his fault the case was abandoned. In any event, Ellis will have to rule on any sentence reduction. The judge may have to make a hypothetical judgment about how much Franklin's testimony may have helped in a trial that will never take place.

(h/t RP)

As I asked last week, what happens to any of the other information he told the FBI since his guilty plea?

AIPAC case dismissed. What happens to Larry Franklin?

So the long-expected dismissal of the AIPAC/Rosen/Weissman case has arrived - in a Friday news dump. Great.

Greenwald's response is typical:

(D)espite being as vigorous a critic of AIPAC as can be, I absolutely believe the Obama DOJ did the right thing.
[]
No matter how harmful one might believe AIPAC to be, the end of this prosecution is something everyone who cares about press freedoms and even free speech should cheer.

There is a problem with that, though, as JTA's Ron Kampeas writes:

But Boente (acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia) made it clear that while Rosen and Weissman are free, the government likes the tool it unearthed in an obscure section of the 1917 Espionage Act -- the ability to charge civilians with dealing in classified information -- and it's going to keep it.

Phil Giraldi adds:

"If you pass information that you know to be classified to a foreign Embassy, that should be considered espionage, shouldn’t it?
[]
Is there something wrong here? Yes, something terribly wrong, though for the life of me I don’t know how we will ever take our government back. Nothing changes. AIPAC always wins. Depressing."

One other point: None of the coverage today mentions the fact that Larry Franklin is currently a free man, and that his eventual sentence was supposed to be dependent on him co-operating. What happens to Franklin now? And what happens to all of the other evidence he has given FBI counter-intelligence in the meantime? Will that ever be acted upon?

**Update: Court filing due May 14