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Rice, Bush Advisers Subpoenaed In Spy Case

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By MATT APUZZO, The Associated Press

Published: November 3, 2007

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and some of President Bush's top foreign policy advisers must testify about their conversations with pro-Israel lobbyists, a federal judge ruled Friday in a trial over the misuse of classified information.

Two former American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbyists have been accused of passing classified information to an Israeli official and the media. They argue, however, that the United States regularly uses the pro-Israel group to send back-channel communications to others, and Rice can verify that unofficial but sanctioned role.

Lobbyists Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman subpoenaed Rice, national security adviser Stephen Hadley, deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams and a dozen others to testify. If the officials ultimately testify, the trial in federal court in suburban Alexandria, Va. could offer a behind-the-scenes look at the way U.S. foreign policy is crafted.

The lobbyists are accused of receiving classified information from a now-convicted Pentagon official and relaying it to an Israeli official and the media. The information included details about al-Qaida, U.S. policy in Iran and the bombing of the Khobar Towers dormitory in Saudi Arabia, federal prosecutors said.

Defense attorneys argued that top U.S. officials regularly used the lobbyists as a go-between as they crafted Middle East policy. If so, attorneys say, how were Rosen and Weissman to know the same behavior that was expected of them on one day was criminal the next?

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III said the lobbyists have a right to argue that "they believed the meetings charged in the indictment were simply further examples of the government's use of AIPAC as a diplomatic back channel."

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