Home > FBI briefs Pentagon on Israel spy case
by David Johnston and Eric Schmitt
Officials say U.S. is preparing arrests
WASHINGTON FBI agents have met in recent days with two high-level Pentagon officials to discuss the case of a Defense Department analyst who is suspected of turning over a classified policy document to Israel, according to a senior defense official.
The two officials, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, and Douglas Feith, the undersecretary for policy, were briefed on the case of the analyst, Lawrence Franklin, who was a lower-level employee in Feith’s office who specialized in Iranian issues.
The official said that meetings with Wolfowitz and Feith were briefings rather than interviews. It remained somewhat unclear whether either man was asked any questions during the meetings about his knowledge of Franklin’s activities.
Feith met with agents at his home on Sunday, the official said. It was not clear exactly when and where the agents met with Wolfowitz. The meetings were first reported on Monday by The Associated Press.
Pentagon officials said in a statement on Friday that no one at the Defense Department beyond Franklin is suspected of any wrongdoing. Neither Wolfowitz nor Feith are regarded as having any involvement in the matter other than as potential witnesses because of their familiarity with Franklin’s work.
So far, no charges in the case have been brought, but behind the scenes government lawyers prepared to make the first arrests by issuing a criminal complaint against one or more figures in the case, government officials said Monday.
A complaint is a relatively quick method of charging someone with a crime. The use of that approach suggested that the government has decided to move quickly to resolve the legal questions in the year-long national security case rather than wait for indictments after a grand jury investigation.
Franklin’s legal status is unclear. The authorities believe that Franklin gave a draft policy directive on Iran to officials from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, who then provided the information to Israeli intelligence.
The group and Israel have denied that they engaged in any wrongdoing. Efforts to contact Franklin have been unsuccessful, but friends and associates have said that he was a highly ethical government employee who would never have violated the law and who had little access to senior policy-makers.
Franklin has been cooperating with federal authorities and is thought to be negotiating a deal with the government that could result in leniency in the form of reduced charges in exchange for his information about other people in the case. It is not clear when or even whether he will be charged in the case.
The case has been assigned to the federal prosecutors in Alexandria, Virginia, an office that has long experience in prosecuting espionage cases. The office is headed by Paul McNulty, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. A spokesman for McNulty would not comment on the matter.
Along with Franklin, two unidentified officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee suspected of passing information to the Israelis are also under investigation. Their legal status could depend on what information Franklin has supplied about their activities along with evidence already obtained by physical and electronic surveillance.
Some Justice Department lawyers are said to have expressed reservations about the proposal to make quick decisions about bringing charges, fearing that such a move would force the government to show its hand, disclosing evidence in a case in which investigators have already been forced to move more quickly than they had hoped because news organizations became aware of the inquiry.
Some officials suspect that the case will never reach the level of an espionage matter.
Investigators do not fully understand the motivations of two American Israel Public Affairs Committee officials who they believe were in contact with Franklin. Moreover, investigators have given up their hope of determining whether Israel regarded Franklin as an asset in a formal intelligence collection operation or as an informal source.
Franklin worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency for most of his career in government until he transferred to the Pentagon policy office in the summer of 2001 to deal with Iranian issues. In his current job, Franklin is one of two Iran desk officers who work in the policy office’s Northern Gulf directorate. Franklin is one of about 1,500 employees who work under Feith in the policy office.
Franklin is also a colonel in the Air Force Reserve who spent at least one of his annual tours on active duty working in the defense attaché’s office in the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv in the late 1990s, defense officials said.