Later On

Laura Rozen has been digging into the Harman story.

Start with this long post, with a good history of the acts of the Gosslings (the small group who managed Porter Goss).

Zachary Roth has a good rundown on the Gosslings here. For example, here’s his profile of one of the Gosslings, Patrick Murray:

Patrick Murray
Murray was the top lawyer on the intelligence committee under Goss, and became his chief of staff at CIA.

While on the committee, Murray acted as a crucial go-between for Goss and the Bush White House. In 2005, a former committee staffer told Robert Dreyfuss of the American Prospect: "There was a sense that [Murray], even more than Porter, was close to the folks at the White House. And that [Murray] was making everything happen, with lots of meetings at the White House, with Cheney’s office, and House leadership."

Dreyfuss added that Goss "was seen as a prisoner of his staff — above all, of Murray."

For instance:

During one confrontation over a controversial piece of legislation, when other members challenged Goss, he deferred to Murray. "Goss looked sad and apologetic, and he looked at us and said, ‘Pat runs the show,’ " according to a source. "We all wondered, ‘What does Pat Murray have on Porter Goss?’"

Once at CIA, Murray quickly alienated the agency’s old guard. In November 2004, the Washington Post reported that John McLaughlin, a CIA veteran who had served as acting director, resigned after warning Goss that Murray, "was treating senior officials disrespectfully and risked widespread resignations." Soon afterwards, Steve Kappes, the deputy director for operations also resigned, after Murray had ordered Kappes to fire a deputy with whom Murray had clashed.

Rozen also talks about the AIPAC case being dropped.

In this long post, Rozen examines oddities and inconsistencies in this matter. From that post:

… But the odd thing is: the NYT published its NSA story in December 2005. And these sources are alerting Burger to the supposed investigation of Harman only in October 2006 – almost a full year after the NYT already published their NSA story, and, as Zachary Roth points out, just 3 days after Harman released the HPSCI Cunningham investigation report.

In other words, Gonzales reportedly putting the Kibosh on any investigation of Harman because she was helping dissuade the NYT from publishing its NSA story was already an entirely moot point for almost a year when this story first surfaced. So clearly there were other reasons the investigation was not pursued against Harman. One obvious possibility: that other people beyond Gonzales in the chain of command thought there wasn’t enough to investigate. That whatever transpired on that call did not merit a criminal or a counterintelligence investigation of Harman…

That point is also in this post by Rozen:

TPM’s Zachary Roth notes something interesting. "The Feds’ interest in whether Harman promised to weigh in on the AIPAC case in exchange for help getting the intel chair job was first reported by Time on October 20, 2006. That was just three days after Harman, as the ranking Democrat on the intel committee, released a stinging report into the Duke Cunningham affair, reportedly over the objections of Republicans on the committee. The report — which laid out, among other things, Cunningham’s ties to CIA number three Dusty Foggo, who had been hired by Goss — helped contribute to Goss’s forced resignation as agency director the following year." And Harman challenges CQ’s Jeff Stein to road race.

And in another post, Rozen provides some intriguing links:

FP: State of play in the Harman case.

Reaction from Philip Weiss (this is how lobby works, making it seem like a partisan food fight to trivialize issue), and Ron Kampeas.

And some Harman-related humor from John Stewart via Zack Roth, Jeff Stein (Harman’s running team called Tapped out) , and the Post: "Rep. Jane Harman (D-Wiretap), who sat one table away from [White House counsel Greg] Craig, did a little cheek kissing of her own as various folks stopped by her table, no doubt to show support for her quest to have transcripts of her secretly recorded conversations with a suspected Israeli agent made public."

Must watch.

If you read through all that, it seems clear that we are far from having the full (or accurate) story of what transpired and why.