FBI Informed White House of AIPAC Probe Two Years Ago

Thu Sep 2, 2004 03:31 PM ET

By Adam Entous

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush's top national security advisers were told more than two years ago of an FBI investigation into whether classified information was passed to Israel by a powerful pro-Israeli lobbying group, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

The counterintelligence investigation started earlier than the year-old criminal investigation now focusing on whether a Defense Department analyst passed secret documents to Israeli intelligence through the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC.

A senior administration official said national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, were "apprised of the counterintelligence investigation of AIPAC" more than two years ago.

The official said the investigation centered on whether AIPAC was acting as a "conduit" -- relaying information the group collected from the administration and the U.S. Congress to Israel, Washington's closest ally in the Middle East.

As part of the criminal investigation, first disclosed last week, FBI agents met on Friday with two officials at AIPAC to ask about their contacts with the Pentagon analyst.

The FBI copied one of their computer hard drives and AIPAC provided investigators with some documents, sources said on Wednesday. The interviews, stopped when the AIPAC officials asked for their lawyers, have yet to resume, officials said.

The FBI declined to comment.

AIPAC said it is cooperating fully with U.S. investigators.

"Neither AIPAC nor any of its employees has violated any laws or rules, nor has AIPAC or its employees ever received information they believed was secret or classified," the organization said.

The sources said the two AIPAC officials interviewed by the FBI were not advised that they were targets of the investigation, launched more than a year ago on suspicions the Pentagon analyst passed secret papers to the Jewish state about one of its most bitter enemies, Iran.

Israel has denied spying on its main ally.

The top-ranking Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, John Conyers, called for the committee to launch an immediate investigation to "examine substantial and credible evidence that Pentagon officials have engaged in criminal wrongdoing in their handling of classified material and have engaged in unauthorized covert activities."

But some of the lawmakers briefed on the FBI's case have reacted skeptically to the evidence presented so far, congressional aides said.

The aides doubted the investigation would reach the level of espionage and would more likely result in lesser charges, if any.

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