FBI Mossad file denial suggests ongoing spying on America

IRmep, 2/12/14 – For several years, IRmep’s Israel Lobby Archive has been trying to obtain and publish FBI files (PDF) about Israel’s Mossad intelligence and covert operations service.  Our key argument for release is that the FBI routinely releases files about Russian and Chinese spies, including interview transcripts and surveillance video.  Appeals of FBI denials to the Justice Department Office of Information Policy led to further denials that such information on Mossad even exists. On the most recent appeal, the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) on January 27 hinted at the high stakes (PDF) of any Mossad file release by the FBI.

“We learned that the FBI carefully reviewed your FOIA request and interpreted it broadly as a request for any records pertaining to an ongoing investigation into Mossad. In this case, the fact that there is or is not an FBI investigation into Mossad is itself information that is exempt from disclosure under FOIA. If the FBI informed you that it has records pertaining to Mossad that must be withheld, you would know that there is a pending investigation.”

Yet the cat is already out of the bag that many such counterintelligence files exist.  Former FBI counterintelligence officer John M. Cole worked for 18 years in the FBI Counterintelligence Division.  According to Cole, over one hundred cases of Israeli espionage against the U.S. government were opened, but conducted under special procedures that rarely led to success. “No one was supposed to know we were investigating the Israelis” stated Cole.  A recent case that could not successfully be buried was instead hermetically walled off from Israel.  That is the 2010 case of Stewart Nozette.

The Nozette affair revealed that Israeli spying is not only ongoing, but increasingly costly to American taxpayers and governance by adding bloat as U.S. taxpayers are forced to fund lavish Israeli programs such as the “iron dome” missile system.  Contrary to FBI denials, its own personnel have publicly noted Mossad connections in correspondence during the investigation of the Anti-Defamation League for espionage in 1993-1994.  Like many other cases benefiting from “special procedures,” the secret intervention of Israeli government officials and behind-the-scenes lobbying of the attorney general kept an FBI-identified American spy for Israel from doing any time in jail.

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IRmep’s Israel Lobby Archive is moving to a new home at: http://IsraelLobby.org

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Posted by Philip Giraldi on Feb 12 2014 . Filed under Commentary & Analysis, Featured articles, Israel Lobby, Spying . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 . Both comments and pings are currently closed.