[Shadow_Group] Fw: Larry Franklin, who is accused of passing secrets on Iran

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THE NATION
Policy Analyst Is Said to Have Rejected Plea Deal

Larry Franklin, who is accused of passing secrets on Iran, also has
replaced his attorney.
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/latimes339.htm<http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/latimes339.htm> 

By Richard B. Schmitt
Times Staff Writer
October 6, 2004 
WASHINGTON - A Pentagon analyst being investigated for allegedly helping
pass secrets to Israel has stopped cooperating with authorities and
retained a new lawyer to fight possible espionage charges, sources
familiar with the case said Tuesday. 
  
  

The analyst, Larry Franklin, has been a key witness in a continuing FBI
investigation looking into whether classified intelligence was passed to
Israel by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, an influential
Washington lobbying firm. 
  
  

Franklin has been accused of passing the contents of a classified
document about U.S. policy on Iran to two AIPAC officials, who in turn
may have given the information to Israeli officials in Washington,
sources have said. 
  
  

Federal prosecutors had proposed an agreement under which Franklin would
plead guilty to some of the charges. Such agreements usually are done in
exchange for leniency and are accompanied by a pledge of cooperation. 
  
  

But sources said Franklin had rejected a proposed deal because he
believed the terms were too onerous. He recently replaced his
court-appointed lawyer. "It looks like there is going to be a battle," a
source familiar with the case said. 
  
  

FBI officials have not yet sought charges against Franklin or anyone else
in the case, although the breakdown of plea negotiations would appear to
raise the odds that he could be charged soon. 
  
  

The scope of the investigation is believed to encompass a top diplomat at
the Israeli Embassy in Washington; two high-ranking analysts at AIPAC;
and the Pentagon office in which Franklin works as an Iran analyst, which
is headed by Defense Undersecretary Douglas J. Feith. 
  
  

The case has attracted widespread attention because it spotlights U.S.
relations with a longtime ally and raises questions about whether those
relations have become too close in recent years. Israel has become
acutely sensitive to the growing nuclear capabilities of Iran, which it
considers to be its most worrisome and deadly foe. 
  
  

Both the Israeli government and AIPAC have denied that they engaged in
any wrongdoing or were given unauthorized access to secrets. 
  
  

A spokesman for Paul McNulty, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District
of Virginia, whose office has been assigned the case, declined to
comment. 

A prominent Washington defense lawyer, Plato Cacheris, confirmed this
week that he recently had been retained by Franklin. 
  
  

"We consider him a loyal American who did not engage in any espionage
activities," said Cacheris, the first person representing Franklin to
speak on his behalf since the investigation surfaced a month ago. "Any
charge of espionage will be met with fierce resistance." 
  
  

Cacheris has represented a number of accused turncoats, including CIA
operative Aldrich H. Ames, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1994
after confessing to years of spying for the Soviet Union. Cacheris also
represented former FBI counterintelligence agent Robert P. Hanssen, also
convicted of passing secrets to the Soviets, who received a life sentence
in 2002. 
  
  

Cacheris' other clients have included former Clinton White House intern
Monica S. Lewinsky and Nixon administration Atty. Gen. John Mitchell. 

Some U.S. officials familiar with the investigation have said there was
little hard evidence that Franklin intended to commit espionage and no
hint that he was paid for any role he might have played. 
  
  

U.S. officials believe there is more evidence that Franklin - described
by colleagues and friends as diligent and thoughtful yet periodically
unreliable and disorganized - might have handed over information without
understanding the gravity of his actions. 
  
  

During two decades at the Pentagon spent tracking threats, he was
considered a journeyman analyst and an absent-minded professor who often
could be found in his office buried behind huge stacks of documents. 
  
  

The classified information he is suspected of sharing includes the
contents of a draft version of a national security presidential
directive, or NSPD, on Iran. The draft advocated measures the United
States could take to help destabilize the regime in Tehran, a subject of
intense interest to the Israelis. 
  
  

But officials also have said that the draft, which originated at the
Pentagon's Near East and South Asian Affairs office, where Franklin
worked, contained little in the way of sensitive secrets that had not
been reported by the media
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