Now and then a little goodness

The Washington Post has the article on the indictments. Daily Kos, below, has some commentary.

An espionage case with wide-ranging implications inside the neocon wing of the administration, including possible connections to the Niger uranium documents that started the Plame saga, is inching forward. WaPo:

Two former employees of an influential pro-Israel lobbying group were charged today with illegally receiving classified information from a Defense Department analyst, according to court documents unsealed in Alexandria.

In a superseding indictment, a federal grand jury also restructured the charges against the analyst, Lawrence A. Franklin, who is alleged to have disclosed classified defense information to the two employees of the group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, known as AIPAC. [...]

Today's indictment outlines a much broader case against [former AIPAC policy director Steven] Rosen and [former senior Middle East analyst Keith] Weissman than has previously been indicated, alleging that the two disclosed sensitive information as far back as 1999 and that the topics ranged from Saudi Arabia to al Qaeda to Iran. Recipients of the information included foreign governments and reporters, the 26-page indictment says.

Franklin worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency under Douglas Feith, and is closely associated with the neocon wing of the Bush administration. See here and here, among other places, for more background.

See especially this intriguing Juan Cole post linking Franklin, Iranian arms dealer Ghorbanifar, SISMI, and the forged Niger uranium documents. Note also that the FBI investigation of Franklin was leaked to the media while still underway, which Larry Johnson and others have previously speculated was an attempt to shut down the investigation into higher up figures in the DOD and NSC. Connections galore...