Jane Harman: Outraged at NSA wiretap

by Mark Silva

Then, there is the odd tale of the federal government's alleged eavesdropping on - a member of Congress.

Rep. Jane Harman, a California Democrat, is demanding answers from the National Security Agency, which reportedly had some questions of its own, reportedly listening on Harman reportedly telling a suspected Israeli agent she would lobby the Justice Department to reduce espionage-related charges against two AIPAC officials.

In exchange for Harman's help, CQ.com has reported, the suspected agent pledged to help lobby then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections. According to one unnamed official cited by CQ.com, Harman hung up after saying, "This conversation doesn't exist."

"I never had any idea that my government was wiretapping me at all," Harman said today, on CNN's The Situation Room.

"Three anonymous sources have told various media that this happened. And they are quoting snippets of allegedly taped conversations. So I don't know what these snippets mean. I don't know whether these intercepts were legal. And that's why I asked [Attorney General] Eric Holder to put it all out there in public."

Harman, denying any wrongdoing, says she was outraged by news that the NSA had intercepted one of her conversations in 2005 or 2006.

"I mean, the person I was talking to was an American citizen,'' Harman said in an interview aired by National Public Radio's All Things Considered this evening. "I know something about the law and wiretaps. There are two ways you do it. One is you get a FISA warrant, which has to start with a foreign suspected terrorist, a non-American foreigner. If this was FISA, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, that would have had to happen.''

Presumably, the NSA was listening in on the show.

Here, courtesy of NPR and CNN, are transcripts of what Harman had to say about all this:

From All Things Considered, NPR:

ROBERT SIEGEL: And I'm Robert Siegel. Now California Congresswoman Jane Harman answers questions raised by a report first Sunday online by Congressional Quarterly and today by The New York Times. Both report that a telephone conversation of Representative Harman's, who is the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, was picked up by a National Security Agency wiretap. Both report that the phone call was with someone who was seeking Harman's support of leniency for two pro-Israel lobbyists who were accused of espionage. They are Stephen Rosen and Keith Weissman of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC. They are awaiting trial.

Congressional Quarterly, or CQ, describes the caller as a suspected Israeli agent. And, according to the reports, the caller offered political help to Harman in her hopes of becoming chair of the House Intelligence Committee and asked that she call the Justice Department on behalf of Rosen and Weissman.

Well, Representative Harman denies ever asking anyone in Justice or the White House or anyone else for favorable treatment of the two men. She has called for the release of all transcripts of her phone calls and she joins us from Capitol Hill. Welcome.

REPRESENTATIVE JANE HARMAN (D-CA): Hi, Robert.

MR. SIEGEL: First, do you remember the phone call in question? Who is the other party and is that a fair description of what was discussed?

REP. HARMAN: We don't know if there was a phone call. These are three unnamed sources, former and present national security officials, who are allegedly selectively leaking information about a phone call or phone calls that may or may not have taken place. I have to say I am outraged that I may have been wiretapped by my government in 2005 or 2006 while I was ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee. First I learned of this was in an e-mail to my office after hours Thursday night by the reporter who published this in CQ.

MR. SIEGEL: Jeff Stein?

REP. HARMAN: - asking for me to comment.

MR. SIEGEL: Yes, but the reports - I don't know how partial they are, but they are based on people who have seen transcripts of wiretaps. And they're very detailed. One, The New York Times reports today that in a call, the caller offered to get Haim Saban, a big political donor and a supporter of Israel, to tell Nancy Pelosi that he wouldn't donate money if you didn't get the chairmanship of the intelligence committee.

REP. HARMAN: (Chuckles.)

MR. SIEGEL: Any conversation like that, ever?

REP. HARMAN: Well, how do we know? That's why I have written -

MR. SIEGEL: Well, do you remember? Do you remember - (inaudible, cross talk).

REP. HARMAN: - this morning to Attorney General Holder asking him to release any transcripts of any interceptions of my conversations without any redactions - that means don't cross anything out - to me and my intention is to make them public, and then we'll see what I may or may not have said four years ago in conversations with an advocacy group like AIPAC or any other groups about the chairmanship of the intelligence committee or anything else. It's totally proper for members of Congress to talk to advocacy groups and our constituents; that's part of our job.

MR. SIEGEL: But are you saying that you really don't have any recollection at all of a phone conversation like this?

REP. HARMAN: I'm saying that, number one, I don't know that there was a phone conversation. If there was and it was intercepted, let's read exactly what I said to whom. We don't know who that was either.

But, by the way, in The New York Times article today, which is a pretty big piece, there is a quote from someone named David Szady, who was the FBI's former top counterintelligence official. And he says, quote, "In all my dealings with her" - that would be me - "she was always professional and never tried to intervene or get in the way of any investigation," unquote.

MR. SIEGEL: But here are some quotations attributed to the transcript of the wiretap of your conversation that CQ reported. At the end, you say to the caller, "This conversation doesn't exist." But that's after you're quoted as saying that, "you would waddle into the matter" - that is, of Rosen and Weissman - "if you think it would make a difference." Can you recall saying that or is that a fair conversation to have with someone?

REP. HARMAN: No. I can't recall with any specificity a conversation I may have had four years ago. That is why I have asked Attorney General Holder to release any transcripts that he has that involve wiretaps of me. And, by the way, there's a question about whether they were legal and there's another question about whether other members of Congress, who also talk regularly to advocacy groups and constituency groups, might have been picked up and may be wiretapped even now or maybe I'm even wiretapped now. I can't tell you with any specificity what the government did since the first news I had about any of this was last Thursday night.

MR. SIEGEL: But, indeed, if what happened was, initially, your phone wasn't tapped; the person you were talking with was being tapped. And if that was an investigation of a foreign agent, is it realistic to think that anybody is going to release a completely unredacted transcript of that conversation?

REP. HARMAN: Well, let's find out. I mean, the person I was talking to was an American citizen. I know something about the law and wiretaps. There are two ways you do it. One is you get a FISA warrant, which has to start with a foreign suspected terrorist, a non-American foreigner. If this was FISA, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, that would have had to happen.

MR. SIEGEL: But if you know that it was an American citizen -

REP. HARMAN: If it was Article III, FBI wiretap, that's different. But I don't know what this was. And I don't know why this was done. And I don't know who the sources are who are claiming that this happened are and I think -

MR. SIEGEL: But you are saying that you know it was an American citizen. So that would suggest that you know that there was a -

REP. HARMAN: Well, I know that anyone I would have talked to about, you know, the AIPAC prosecution would have been an American citizen. I didn't talk to some foreigner about it.

MR. SIEGEL: You never spoke to an Israeli? You never spoke to an Israeli about this.

REP. HARMAN: Well, I speak to Israelis from time to time. I just came back from a second trip to Israel in this calendar year. I've been to the Middle East region as a member of Congress 22 times and was in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Israel and Turkey just a week ago.

But here's the problem, Robert - and I'm going to try and get this across again. These are selective leaks. They are quoting - allegedly quoting me - maybe out of context based on transcripts that these people say they've seen. I didn't even know there were transcripts. Apparently some people in the government, some people in Congress knew about this; but I didn't know a think about this. And it seems to me very troubling and an abuse of power that members of Congress are wiretapped and may be some part of some kind of investigation. But I was never told. This was four years ago. I have never been told in any way by the Justice Department that I was being investigated for anything. So let me just -

MR. SIEGEL: But if you were being investigated, you wouldn't actually expect them to tell everybody they're investigating that they're being wiretapped?

REP. HARMAN: Well, I think they would tell people if you're the subject of an investigation, I think they're required to do that or in some way importantly involved in an investigation. And I was told absolutely nothing. And maybe there are other members of Congress who are having this same problem. But more important than members of Congress who have bully pulpits are citizens.

MR. SIEGEL: And on that note, I've run out of our time. So I'm sorry. Representative Harman, thanks a lot for talking with us. We appreciate it.

REP. HARMAN: Thank you, Robert.

From The Situation Room, CNN:

BLITZER: Let's talk to Jane Harman, the Congresswoman from California.

She's here in THE SITUATION ROOM.

Thanks very much for coming in.

REP. JANE HARMAN, (D), CALIFORNIA: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Do you remember any such conversation with an Israeli or Israeli agent representing AIPAC, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee?

HARMAN: I have known about this for a few days and I never had any idea that my government was wiretapping me at all. Three anonymous sources have told various media that this happened. And they're quoting snippets of allegedly taped conversations. So I don't know what the snippets mean. I don't know whether these intercepts were legal. And that's why I asked Eric Holder to put it all out there in public.

BLITZER: Because "The New York Times" and "Congressional Quarterly," they say there are actually transcripts of this recorded wiretap.

HARMAN: Well, let's see if there are -- or wiretaps. And let's see who else was wiretapped. I mean lots of members of Congress talk to advocacy organizations. My phone is ringing off the hook in my office from worried members who are asking whether I think it could have happened to them. I think this is an abuse of power, Wolf.

BLITZER: Because they say at the end of that alleged conversation, for which they have some sort of transcript, you were quoted as saying: "This conversation doesn't exist."

HARMAN: I have no idea what I might have said in conversations with somebody or somebodies. These are American citizens we're talking about-- conversations that took place in America.

I'm an American citizen...

BLITZER: Was this a conversation you had with an American citizen or an Israeli citizen?

HARMAN: I don't -- I cannot imagine I had any conversation like this with -- with anyone who was not an American citizen.

BLITZER: So is the NSA, the National Security Agency...

HARMAN: Well, let's find...

BLITZER: ...authorized to wiretap American citizens?

HARMAN: It's -- the -- the -- if -- if we're talking about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the original target has to be a foreigner outside the -- the United States who's suspected of being a terrorist.

And if that person talks to an American in America, then you can get an individualized FISA warrant.

But this is complicated. It's not clear who did what. It's just -- the allegations are that it was about me. And I -- you know, I -- my comment is this is an abuse of power.

I'm not worried about me. I have a bully pulpit. I'm on your show talking about it.

BLITZER: But you did endorse -- you did support those warrantless wiretap -- those intercepts when you were, you know, just reviewing it, right?

HARMAN: I sup -- no. I support, if necessary, surveillance of people in order to prevent attacks against us. But they have to -- surveillance has to be done consistent with our laws and the Constitution. I didn't know -- I did not know that what the Bush administration was doing until it disclosed the program in 2005 did not follow the law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

BLITZER: And this notion that you were seeking to convince Nancy Pelosi to allow you to become the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, you went to a major political donor of Nancy Pelosi to threaten her that she would lose the support -- you saw that allegation in "The New York Times."

HARMAN: I -- I -- I think this is just -- just strange. I didn't need -- I don't need to persuade members of the American-Israel Political Action Committee that I'm a friend of theirs.

Why would I do some kind of deal?

And anyway, let's have the transcripts out. Let's see what I said and to whom. And I did not make any effort -- this I remember clearly -- at all ever to influence our government at any level to reduce the sentences of alleged...

BLITZER: Then you don't remember...

HARMAN: ...employees of AIPAC.

BLITZER: ...ever ending a conversation with anyone by saying those words that were quoted in "The New York Times" today: "This conversation doesn't exist."

HARMAN: Wolf, this is four years ago. I have many conversations every day with advocacy groups. There's nothing wrong with doing this. I talk to AIPAC. I talk to many other groups. I -- I frequently go to the Middle East, as you do.

And so I -- I want to see a full transcript of what I said, if someone wiretapped me. And I want to know, by the way, if the wiretaps were legal. And I want to make sure that members of Congress are not routinely wiretapped without their knowledge.

BLITZER: Because our Jeanne Meserve -- you just saw the report. She says based on the information she's getting, it was a legal wiretap. But we're trying to figure out who the other person was that you allegedly had this conversation with...

HARMAN: Right.

BLITZER: ...whether it was a U.S. citizen, an Israeli citizen. And we don't know the answer to that.

HARMAN: And the sources for these stories, so far as I know, are three undisclosed people, former and present national security officials.

Who are these people and what agendas do they have?

And so...

BLITZER: Have you had conversations with officials at the Justice Department, the NSA, the CIA, the White House...

HARMAN: About this?

BLITZER: ...about this?

HARMAN: Never. Never. This story, this old, stale story has been leaked twice. In 2006, right before the election -- and it was discredited. And again, this weekend. And...

BLITZER: So what does Jane Harman do now to try to clear her name?

Because it was the banner of -- the lead story in "The New York Times" today.

HARMAN: Well, I, frankly, think my name is clear. My conscience is certainly clear. And I think the question is about, does our government-- or did our government abuse the rights of American citizens, including members of Congress, with legal or illegal wiretappings about things that were not appropriate and then selective leaking of the product of those leaks for political purposes?

BLITZER: And if there are these transcripts of this alleged conversation you had, you want the government to release those transcripts?

HARMAN: I want the government to release those transcripts without redaction, without crossing out names. And then I will make them available to the public. And you and I can read together what I may have said that was wiretapped four years ago and make sense of it or not.

I mean these were informal conversations with friends of mine. There is nothing wrong with talking to advocacy groups and constituency groups. And I do it every single day. And I'm proud to have a lot of friends, as you just heard Speaker Pelosi say, in Washington and I -- and around the world.

And this is a strange event. It's a -- it's a kind of out of body experience. But I am -- I am offended by it. I think it's an abuse of power. And I want to make sure it's not happening to other people.

BLITZER: If they hand over the transcripts to you and you want to release them, we'll be happy to read them together with you.

HARMAN: I'll welcome that.

I love being on this show again.

HARMAN: Thanks very much, Congresswoman.

HARMAN: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Congresswoman Jane Harman of California.