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FBI agents thought they were hunting a spy for Israel in 2004 when they sought to raid the offices of a top lobbyist for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), according to a search warrant affidavit obtained by The Washington Times.
The 27-page document, which is still under court seal, provides an extraordinary look at what the agents considered to be espionage activity in a nearly five-year counterintelligence probe of one of the pro-Israel lobby's top officials.
It also shows that the everyday activities of diplomats, lobbyists and reporters — namely, meeting with U.S. officials, taking notes and then trading that information with other officials — was considered spying by the bureau.
In addition, the AIPAC investigation has had a lasting effect on U.S.-Israel relations: The FBI blocked Israel's current national security adviser from entering the United States between 2007 and 2009 on grounds that he had met with a secondary target of the probe.
According to the search warrant affidavit, agents thought Steven J. Rosen, then-director of foreign-policy issues for AIPAC, was collecting classified U.S. information from government officials and passing it on to American reporters and Israeli officials.
"Based upon my training and experience as an counterintelligence investigator, I believe Rosen is collecting U.S. government sensitive and classified information, not only as part of his employment at AIPAC, but as an agent of Country 1," FBI agent Eric Lurie wrote in the affidavit.
Country 1 refers to Israel, according to law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation.
However, Mr. Rosen, who pioneered AIPAC's practice of lobbying the executive branch in the early 1980s, was never charged with being a spy.
The probe resulted in only one conviction: Lawrence A. Franklin, a Pentagon analyst whom the FBI coaxed into offering Mr. Rosen and his AIPAC colleague, Keith Weissman, classified data about Iran as part of a sting. Franklin pleaded guilty in 2006 to three counts of mishandling classified information.
The case highlights caution-taking and suspicion-inducing aspects of the spy-vs.-spy intelligence community, even among allies who routinely share intelligence, as the U.S. and Israel do.
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