UPDATED: Rep. Harman Gets Wiretapped?
I remember reading a few days back a rumor about some member of Congress caught on tape talking to a foreign target of an NSA wiretap, but I don’t remember where I read that.
Now key details of the story have finally been unveiled by Congressional Quarterly: sources say it was U.S. Rep. Jane Harman (Democrat – CA) on the phone, trying to arrange a quid pro quo of some sort with “a suspected Israeli” back in 2005.
Allegedly, the whole thing then got covered up by the Bush administration, a favor Harman was – allegedly, again – glad to repay with political support for the NSA domestic surveillance program as it existed back then.
This story should suck the air out of the news cycle for the next several weeks, if not longer. Why now, though? Certainly it focuses attention on the prior administration; and looking back to the Bush years is very much a signature move of the Obama White House, as I noted here.
But why throw Harman under the bus? Is she opposed to Obama’s budget or something? Who’s enemies list is she on, Rahm’s or the President’s? How many more Democrats have skeletons in their closets of this sort that Obama can use to his advantage? He is keeping score, after all…
(H/T: TPM)
UPDATE: I remember where I read about that rumor: it was on Instapundit.
MORE: Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection puts the revelation of the surveillance tape in the context of foreign policy.
