[New York Jewish Week ] Editorial - The federal case against two former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), already three years old, long ago crossed the line between serious prosecution and farce. While nobody condones the illegal use of sensitive national security information, federal prosecutors have signaled that this case is about something else: the Bush administration's obsession with secrecy, with maybe a dash of resentment about the pro-Israel lobby thrown in for good measure. A prosecution that looked flimsy at the outset has grown progressively weaker, with Judge Thomas Ellis sometimes openly disdaining elements of the government's case and the chief prosecutor quitting to go into private practice, leaving his staff to plod ahead even as legal scholars scratch their heads. More than anything, the affair looks like prosecutorial overreach, followed by a bad case of bureaucratic inertia by officials too proud - or too embarrassed - to back down.
2008-03-28 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive