AIPAC 'mole' says he was a double agent
Larry Franklin, former Pentagon analyst convicted of relaying classified information to AIPAC, claims in Washington Times interview he was asked by FBI to spy on Jewish lobby. Franklin says FBI sent him to record conversation with AIPAC member and Israeli Embassy official
WASHINGTON - A surprising turn of events in the 2004 Pentagon mole affair: Larry Franklin, who was convicted of relaying classified information to AIPAC members, claimed on Wednesday that he worked as an undercover double agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in order to collect information on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
In an interview to the Washington Times Franklin related that the FBI sent him to record a conversation with AIPAC lobbyist Keith Weissman and Israeli Embassy official, Naor Gilon and that he cooperated on other matters for a period of 10 weeks in 2004.
The former Pentagon analyst said in the interview that he never considered spying for Israel and that he felt betrayed when the FBI agents he was assisting finally informed him he would need a lawyer.
"I cooperated without a lawyer because I thought we were on the same side…and I was dumbfounded," Franklin was quoted as saying by the Washington Times.
FBI arm twisting
Franklin further stated in the interview, "I had no money, I told them, for a lawyer. They assigned me a lawyer who was paid by the government who wanted me to sign something that was anathema to me, an abomination."
Franklin eventually pleaded guilty and the court sentenced him to over 12 years imprisonment. However, his sentenced was reduced to probation by a federal judge after the US administration decided not to pursue a trial against former AIPAC analysts Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman.
Franklin, who was a senior analyst on Iranian matters in the Pentagon claimed in the Washington Times interview that the FBI initially put pressure on him to work undercover in an investigation into alleged Israeli spying in the United States in May 2004 after he was suspected of providing a CBS reporter with information on Iraqi exile leader Ahmed Chalabi's relations with Iran.
At the time, Chalabi was a candidate of the Bush administration to replace Saddam Hussein as Iraq's ruler.
According to Franklin, the FBI convinced him that Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman were "bad people" and that they could use his help in obtaining criminal evidence against the two lobbyists.
Franklin, a retired colonel in the US Air Force who had previously worked as an undercover intelligence officer in Israel, said in the interview that he met with Naor Gilon, currently a senior official in the Israeli Foreign Ministry. He said of Gilon, "He was a source of mine, and I wrote several intelligence information reports, which I cannot go into, that detailed the information that he gave me."
