AIPAC symbol and Capitol Hill
AIPAC symbol and Capitol HillIsrael News Photo

Sources in the U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday that it may drop the espionage case against two former AIPAC lobbyists, Steve J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, who were indicted in 2005 on three counts of espionage for passing classified information to Israel.

The trial for the two was postponed at least nine times already as the defense fought for the right to present classified information in its case. The prosecution had a major setback when a court ruling in 2007 said the defendants can call more than 10 prominent government officials to testify at the trial, including former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Rosen and Weissman’s lawyers have claimed that the semi-classified testimony, which the prominent government officials could provide, would show that Washington frequently uses AIPAC to pass classified information to Israel as a back channel, proving the lobbyists did no wrong. The two were charged under the rarely used 1917 World War I Espionage Act, a law that has never been applied to lobbyists.

Former Pentagon official Lawrence Franklin pleaded guilty in 2006 of passing the information on to Rosen and Weissman and was sentenced to almost 13 years in prison and $10,000 in fines.

The case received publicity this week after a story broke that federal wiretaps caught Congresswoman Jane Harman offering to intervene with the Justice Department on behalf of the two AIPAC officials. Harman immediately denied that she ever intervened on behalf of the two and challenged the Justice Department to publish the transcripts so she could prove her innocence.