Monday April 20, 2009, 3:46 pm
"But that’s exactly what happened, according to sources interviewed by Congressional Quarterly’s Jeff Stein. In 2006, the NSA informed the Justice Department it had caught Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), then the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, offering to lobby the Justice Department to soften espionage-related charges against two pro-Israel lobbyists in exchange for lobbying help to make her chair of the intelligence committee."

Monday April 20, 2009, 6:28 pm
So Atrios posted this morning on a CQ story saying what we've known all along - that the NSA was spying on all sorts of people they are not supposed to be spying on, such as Congressional Democrats. And they heard Representative Jane Harmon arranging a little deal with an Israeli agent and AIPAC (that included a "pledge" by the Israeli agent to lobby Pelosi to appoint Harmon chair of the Intelligence Committee). Now, you might say that Jane Harmon to be caught, except that she wasn't doing anything the administration didn't want her to do, and by spying on Jane Harmon they were pretty much guaranteeing that they could make sure she did what they wanted. Not that she wasn't planning to, anyway, but once they caught her in the act, she was pretty much in their hands whenever they wanted. "And that, contrary to reports that the Harman investigation was dropped for 'lack of evidence,' it was Alberto R. Gonzales, President Bush's top counsel and then attorney general, who intervened to stop the Harman probe. Why? Because, according to three top former national security
officials, Gonzales wanted Harman to be able to help defend the administration's warrantless wiretapping program, which was about break in The New York Times and engulf the White House." See how neatly this all ties together?