Subpoena arguments in AIPAC case

By · August 30, 2007

The federal judge in the case against two former AIPAC staffers heard government arguments against subpoenaing top U.S. officials, including Condoleezza Rice.

Judge T.S. Ellis III’s pretrial hearing Thursday in Alexandria, Va., in the classified information leak case against Steve Rosen, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s former foreign policy chief, and Keith Weissman, its former Iran analyst, was closed to the media because it dealt with classified information. However, a docket entry described the hearing as dealing with prosecutors’ “objections to defendants’ prospective subpoenas to U.S. government officials.”

The list of targeted officials was unsealed inadvertently last year for several days, and among those sought by the defense are Rice, the secretary of state, and Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser.

Rosen and Weissman want to show that the information outlined as leaked in the indictment was not extraordinary and had been relayed to them by officials at the highest level of government.

Government reasons for resisting the subpoenas were not available.

Rosen and Weissman are scheduled to go on trial in January.