WASHINGTON, DC — May 6, 2009 — Judge T.S. Ellis III of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia formally dismissed all charges against two former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), including an Arent Fox client, who had been charged with violating the 1917 Espionage Act.

The judge's action comes after last Friday's announcement by the US Justice Department that prosecutors were asking the court to dismiss all charges against the two men, earning Arent Fox partners John Nassikas and Baruch Weiss a historic victory in the high-profile, four-year-old case.

The conclusion of the case and Arent Fox's victory generated headlines and editorials across the country and around the globe. 

The Washington Post

A Look at the Dropping of Espionage Charges
By Walter Pincus
Tuesday, May 5, 2009 

When the Justice Department on Friday formally dropped its four-year-old case against two former pro-Israel lobbyists for allegedly conspiring to violate the 1917 Espionage Act, prosecutors cited several reasons for their decision but did not provide details.

Some details from the point of view of the defendants, Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, can be gleaned from a March 27 letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., asking the Obama administration to review the case. That was written by the pair's lead defense attorneys, Abbe David Lowell, John N. Nassikas III and Baruch Weiss.

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Los Angeles Times

Case against pro-Israel lobbyists likely to be dropped
By Josh Meyer
May 2, 2009

Reporting from Washington — The Justice Department asked a judge Friday to drop espionage-related charges against two pro-Israel lobbyists, a move expected to end a politically sensitive case that focused on whether U.S. secrets had been leaked.

Prosecutors said recent court decisions would have made the case hard to win and forced disclosure of large amounts of classified information. But defense lawyers and some legal experts said the government was wrong in the first place for trying to criminalize the kind of information horse-trading that long has occurred in Washington. ... Defense lawyers Abbe Lowell and Baruch Weiss said their clients had met frequently with those officials. As witnesses, the officials would help prove that the Bush administration, like prior administrations, routinely discussed sensitive information with AIPAC as part of a sanctioned, back-channel relationship between the United States and Israel. Lowell and another defense lawyer, John Nassikas III, praised the Obama administration for reviewing the case and denounced the previous administration's actions dating to the first FBI search at AIPAC's offices in 2004.

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The New York Times

U.S. to Drop Spy Case Against Pro-Israel Lobbyists
By Neil A. Lewis and David Johnston
May 2, 2009

A case that began four years ago with the tantalizing and volatile premise that officials of a major pro-Israel lobbying organization were illegally trafficking in sensitive national security information collapsed on Friday as prosecutors asked that all charges be withdrawn.From the beginning, the case against the lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee was highly unusual. The two, Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, were charged under the World War I-era Espionage Act, accused of improperly providing to their colleagues, journalists and Israeli diplomats sensitive information they had acquired by speaking with American policy makers.

Lawyers for Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman said in a statement that while they were pleased at the decision, the government had erred in bringing the case in the first place and had caused great damage to their clients. ... The case would have been the first prosecution under the espionage law in which no documents were involved and in which the defendants were not officials who provided the information, but the private citizens who received it from them in conversations.

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The Washington Post

U.S. Drops Case Against Ex-Lobbyists
By Jerry Markon
May 2, 2009

Federal prosecutors yesterday abandoned an espionage-law case against two former lobbyists for a pro-Israel advocacy group, a case that had transfixed much of official Washington because of its potential to criminalize the exchange of sensitive information among journalists, lobbyists and policy analysts. In asking a judge to dismiss charges against Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, formerly of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, officials said recent court rulings had changed the legal landscape and made it unlikely that they would win. ... Lawyers for Rosen and Weissman attributed the withdrawal of the case in part to the Obama administration. “We are extremely grateful that this new Administration . . . has taken seriously their obligation to evaluate cases on the merits,” the lawyers, Abbe D. Lowell, John Nassikas and Baruch Weiss, said in a statement.     

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BBC News

US dismisses Israel lobbyist case  
May 1, 2009

The US has moved to dismiss a case against two former pro-Israel lobbyists accused of conspiring to pass defence secrets to unauthorised persons. Prosecutors had said Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman intended to disclose the details to Israel and to the media. But the government said it was unlikely to win the case and that trial could exposed classified information. Critics said the case had been a bid to criminalise commonplace exchanges between journalists and politicians.

Lawyers for the two men said the decision was “a huge victory for the First Amendment,” which constitutionally guarantees the right to free speech in the US. The Associated Press reported Baruch Weiss as saying that a prosecution victory would have set a precedent for journalists seeking sensitive information to face possible prosecution. But Mr Weiss said the four-year process had been a “tremendous hardship” for the two men, who were dismissed by Aipac in 2005.

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Jerusalem Post

US may dismiss former AIPAC lobbyists' case  
May 1, 2009

Prosecutors asked a judge to drop charges against two ex-AIPAC staffers accused of passing along classified information. In a statement Friday, the acting US attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia said restrictions on the government's case imposed by Judge T.S. Ellis III made conviction unlikely.

“Given the diminished likelihood the government will prevail at trial under the additional intent requirements imposed by the court and the inevitable disclosure of classified information that would occur at any trial in this matter, we have asked the court to dismiss the indictment,” Dana Boente said.

Baruch Weiss, Weissman's lawyer, told JTA that the decision was a “great victory for the First Amendment and for the pro-Israel community.” Anything the defendants did “was to the benefit of Israel and the United States,” he said.

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JTA

AIPAC decision a victory—with qualifiers 
By Ron Kampeas
May 1, 2009 

Baruch Weiss, the young lawyer who helped cripple the government’s case against two former AIPAC staffers, says the prosecution’s loss is a “great victory” for free speech and for Israel’s friends.

In a statement on May 1, Dana Boente, the acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said that “Given the diminished likelihood the government will prevail at trial under the additional intent requirements imposed by the court and the inevitable disclosure of classified information that would occur at any trial in this matter, we have asked the court to dismiss the indictment.”

Weiss, Weissman’s attorney, said the move by the government to drop the case represented a “great victory for the First Amendment and for the pro-Israel community.” 

To read the complete article, please click here.