Another Politician With Problems

CQ Politics ~ 'Rep. Jane Harman , the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington.

Harman was recorded saying she would "waddle into" the AIPAC case "if you think it'll make a difference," according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript.

In exchange for Harman's help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, which the Democrats were heavily favored to win.

Seemingly wary of what she had just agreed to, according to an official who read the NSA transcript, Harman hung up after saying, "This conversation doesn't exist." Harman declined to discuss the wiretap allegations, instead issuing an angry denial through a spokesman.

"These claims are an outrageous and recycled canard, and have no basis in fact," Harman said in a prepared statement. "I never engaged in any such activity. Those who are peddling these false accusations should be ashamed of themselves."’

This particular subject doesn't strike me as odd, congressional leaders wheel and deal this way on a daily basis. Though I do wonder about how much information spies obtain from Congress and, as always, the necessity for any politician to lie. Even when confronted with an actual tape recording, it has "no basis in fact". This would have probably never come to the public eye, but I have a sneaky suspicion that she wouldn't play ball with her peers and this was a reprisal.

The Justice Department is probably gonna let them off the hook anyway; lobbyists pay well...

Have you noticed how most Democratic congresspeople don't get indicted for criminal behavior, even though they are accused of wrongdoing twice as much as Republicans?