Where in the World is Larry Franklin?

During the period of November 2008 to January 2009, when Barack Obama was still a President-Elect and George W. Bush was the lamest of lame ducks, speculation was rampant that Scooter Libby would top the list of last minute pardons. I didn't put much stock in such predictions because it seemed so pointless: the sentence had already been commuted, Libby would never serve a day for his crimes. The one felon I was certain would get a pardon was Larry Franklin. It seemed to me Bush had the most to lose from not pardoning him. To review:

Lawrence Anthony Franklin is a former U.S. Air Force Reserve colonel who has pleaded guilty to passing information about U.S. policy towards Iran to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the foremost pro-Israel lobbying organization in the U.S, while he was working for the Defense Department. He claims this was an attempt to get the information to the United States National Security Council, which he was not able to do through regular Pentagon channels. Two former employees of AIPAC (Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman) also faced charges (that would later be dropped) that they assisted him in the AIPAC espionage scandal and passing classified national defense information to an Israeli diplomat Naor Gilon. On January 20, 2006, Judge T.S. Ellis, III sentenced Franklin to 151 months (almost 13 years) in prison and fined him $10,000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Franklin

I assumed Bush had everything to gain from pardoning a loyal neo-con who had been rotting in prison since January 20, 2006. There was one problem with this assumption that I discovered recently while investigating the revelations that Sibel Edmonds has provided on this scandal reported by Luke Ryland: LARRY FRANKLIN IS NOT IN JAIL!

One other interesting part of the interview, highlighted by Mizgin, is that indicted spy Larry Franklin was working with Richard Perle and Douglas Feith at the ATC way back in 1994. According to Sibel, Franklin was "one of the top people providing information and packages during 2000 and 2001." Despite many media reports to the contrary, Larry Franklin is not currently in jail,(emphasis added) and it is not clear what will happen to him if the trial of Rosen & Weissman from AIPAC doesn't proceed as planned in June.

http://lukery.blogspot.com/2009/04/first-merchant-bank-exposed.html

I clicked on the link where I boldprinted and this came up:

Inmate Locator - Locate Federal inmates from 1982 to present
Name Register # Age-Race-Sex Release Date
Location
1. LAWRENCE ANTHONY FRANKLIN 70425-083 62-White-M UNKNOWN NOT IN BOP CUSTODY(emphasis added)

http://www.bop.gov/iloc2/InmateFinderServlet?Transaction=NameSearch&needingMoreList=false&FirstName=Lawrence&Middle=Anthony&LastName=Franklin&Race=U&Sex=U&Age=&x=68&y=14

Where the hell could he have disappeared to?! I kept investigating and today I came across this revelation: LARRY FRANKLIN IS STILL A FREE MAN!



In this interview at antiwar.com, CQ's Jeff Stein - who broke the new allegations about U.S. Rep. Jane Harman's alleged involvement in seeking leniency for Rosen and Weissman - says that the Pentagon leaker at the heart of the affair, Larry Franklin, is in jail, doing 12.5 years and moreover, the sentence is relatively lenient, only because Franklin is expected to cooperate at trial.

That might have come as a surprise to Franklin, who was seen last week hanging around the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, sporting camouflage pants and boots (the weather has been very weird in DC of late. And he is a former Air Force colonel.) I mean, the Ronald Reagan Building is less than inspiring, it's true, but a prison it's not.

(Jeff's not the only one who's made this mistake - just the latest. I keep hearing references to Franklin being in jail.)

Franklin was sentenced to just over 12.5 years, it is true - and that was by all accounts not a lenient sentence - but his time was deferred until after he testifies at the Rosen and Weissman trial. I heard from sources at the time that prosecutors would recommend a reduction to three years should he cooperate, and that Judge T.S. Ellis was likely to take the deal.

But that was over three years ago. And now the case might not even go to trial. And if it does, I've heard that prosecutors are reluctant to use him.

This, I've heard, is remarkable; prosecutors pull key witnesses only if they've done serious damage to their credibility while awaiting trial (for instance, a repentant mob hitman who just can't break the habit.) Franklin's abided by the conditions of his sentencing, including avoiding reporters like the plague.

So why not use him? His outbursts during his allocution when he pleaded guilty might be illustrative: The promise of the crux of the government case shouting out "it wasn't classified and isn't classified" when he's on the stand must be giving prosecutors the willies.

So what does this mean for Franklin? His crimes are not unserious: He swore to keep the secrets he leaked not only to Rosen and Weissman, but to Naor Gilon (the Israeli diplomat coming soon to an international incident near you.) (all emphasis mine)Franklin's unhappy profile as a prosecution witness might not necessarily mean he isn't "helpful" - just truthful.

But 12.5 years, especially after being held in limbo for more than three years?

And a deal's a deal, right?

We'll soon find out.


http://blogs.jta.org/politics/article/2009/04/22/1004577/maybe-jane-harman-slipped-larry-franklin-a-file-in-a-cappucino


Unfortunately, though it almost slipped under the radar, we soon found out that the charges against Rosen and Weissman were dropped:


WASHINGTON — 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.

-snip-

While Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman trafficked in facts, ideas and rumor, they had done so with the full awareness of officials in the United States and Israel, who found they often helped lubricate the wheels of decision-making between two close, but sometimes quarrelsome, friends.

-snip-

The investigation of Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman also surfaced recently in news reports that Representative Jane Harman, a California Democrat long involved in intelligence matters, was overheard on a government wiretap discussing the case. As reported by Congressional Quarterly, which covers Capitol Hill, and The New York Times, Ms. Harman was overheard agreeing with an Israeli intelligence operative to try to intercede with Bush administration officials to obtain leniency for Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman in exchange for help in persuading Democratic leaders to make her chairwoman of the House Intelligence Committee.

-snip-

Over government objections, Judge Ellis had also ruled that the defense could call as witnesses several senior Bush administration foreign policy officials to demonstrate that what occurred was part of the continuing process of information trading and did not involve anything nefarious. The defense lawyers were planning to call as witnesses former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Stephen J. Hadley, the former national security adviser; and several others.(all emphasis mine) Government policy makers indicated they were clearly uncomfortable with senior officials’ testifying in open court over policy deliberations.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/us/politics/02aipac.html?_r=1


So chalk up another rug-sweeping victory for the Deep State. They got to Judge Ellis, who if you read the text of the sentence against Franklin http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/franklin012006.pdf completely reversed the logic he used to sentence Franklin by setting the standard that Rosen and Weissman had to be proven to try to harm the security of the United States to be convicted, whereas Ellis admonished Franklin for providing the defense that he meant no harm! So Rosen and Weissman, along with their probable co-conspirators Hadley and Rice go free.

But what about Franklin? His freedom was contingent upon his testimony at the Rosen and Weissman trials. Now that there will be no trials, does anyone know where Franklin is now? While I have to give credit to Counterpunch http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp05012009.html http://www.counterpunch.org/abourezk05042009.html and antiwar.com for exposing the bullshit behind the excuses for the dismissal, neither have reported correctly the current status of Larry Franklin. Only Luke Ryland has been staying on top of this:


One other point: None of the coverage today mentions the fact that Larry Franklin is currently a free man, and that his eventual sentence was supposed to be dependent on him co-operating. What happens to Franklin now? And what happens to all of the other evidence he has given FBI counter-intelligence in the meantime? Will that ever be acted upon?
Posted by lukery at 5/02/2009 10:33:00 AM
Labels: AIPAC, Larry Franklin, Rosen, Weissman
3 comments:

Robert Paulsen said...

Thank you so much for staying on top of this. It boggles my mind that nobody, not in MSM, not on any other alternative media internet site, NOBODY EXCEPT YOU, seems to be aware of this oversight. I've tried posting about this on DU and everyone there seems to be unaware as well.

Three years after being sentenced to 12.5 years in jail, LARRY FRANKLIN IS STILL A FREE MAN!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5599574

I'll keep shouting out about this injustice if you keep researching. Any updates as to Larry Franklin's current whereabouts? I'd like to see at least one person pay for this scandal.
May 8, 2009 5:50 AM
lukery said...

RP - Franklin was last seen in DC. I suspect he still lives there.
May 8, 2009 8:54 AM

http://lukery.blogspot.com/2009/05/aipac-case-dismissed-what-happens-to.html

Can someone put a warrant out for this convicted felon who has yet to serve his sentence?!

http://americanjudas.blogspot.com/2009/05/where-in-world-is-larry-franklin.html

tried and sentenced just to silence him? If everything was OK with the Bush administration, why did it bring the charges? This is very strange. I have to admit that I have not followed this. But the facts you recount make no sense at all.

From the second edition of American Judas:



An even more intriguing question: is it possible Valerie Plame and her CPD cover company Brewster Jennings & Associates may have been tracking a false flag operation? Perhaps the OSP trying to have WMD planted for political purposes falls within that category. Or perhaps something darker was uncovered, along the lines of something similar to the Bologna train bombings of 1980? It is interesting to note as a prelude to investigating these questions that Ledeen has been emphatic about the December meeting he attended NOT being about Iraq, but Afghanistan and Iran, http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Backchannels_used_to_bypass_U.S._government_0111.html while Ghorbanifar says one of the things he discussed at the meeting was regime change in Iran. http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/10/19/145557/54 It’s interesting because Plame’s focus in WMD proliferation was Iran; the damage sustained by the CIA impaired their ability to adequately monitor nuclear proliferation on the level of efficiency and accuracy it had prior to the White House leak for up to 10 years. http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Outed_CIA_officer_was_working_on_0213.html What exactly Plame and the CPD might have been tracking regarding Iran that grew out of the December 2001 Rome meeting can be examined more closely by focusing on the relationships and activities of the other two Americans besides Ledeen who attended the meeting: Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin.

snip

Both Rhode and Franklin worked for Feith in the Office of Special Plans. And there may be one more thing these men have in common: a bad habit of passing classified information to Israel and Iran. Rhode is under investigation for charges, while Franklin has already pled guilty to passing on a classified Presidential Directive, and other sensitive documents pertaining to US deliberations on foreign policy regarding Iran, to a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), who in turn provided the information to Israel in what has become known as the AIPAC spy scandal. http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Backchannels_used_to_bypass_U.S._government_0111.html

http://americanjudas.blogspot.com/2007/03/american-judas-2nd-edition-investigate.html


This is indeed very strange. Is this just a loose thread from a lameduck who stopped giving a shit once Obama won? You can't have a convicted felon yet to serve his sentence walking free too long when the contingency on which his freedom was granted no longer exists. Then again, if nobody is paying attention, if the media is asleep on the job, why not?

Judge formally drops case against pro-Israel lobbyists

snip

The dismissal aspect of Ellis' order, which was posted on the court's docket today, is essentially a formality. What was more interesting is that he said he is expecting some kind of action from the government regarding Larry Franklin, a Pentagon analyst who pled guilty early on in the case.

Ellis sentenced Franklin in 2006 to more than 12 years in prison for disclosing classified information to Rosen, Weissman and others. However, Franklin agreed to cooperate with the government and never reported to jail.(emphasis added)

"It is further ordered that the government is directed to advise the Court, by 5:00 p.m., Thursday May 14, 2009, regarding when it contemplates filing an appropriate motion with respect to defendant Franklin," Ellis's new order says.

Lawyers involved in the case expected Franklin to seek a reduction in his sentence once the trial against Rosen and Weissman was complete. Now that the trial will never happen, it's an open question of how much of a sentence reduction Franklin will get. Presumably, it's not his fault the case was abandoned. In any event, Ellis will have to rule on any sentence reduction. The judge may have to make a hypothetical judgment about how much Franklin's testimony may have helped in a trial that will never take place.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0509/Judge_formally_drops_case_against_proIsrael_lobbyists.html

OK, May 14 is the moment of truth. Let's see if this isn't a total whitewash of justice.

It's even worse than that, RP. This is part of the most serious cluster of closely related scandals in our nation's history.

Nominated. Good work.

Technically, could they give him nothing saying he has done time served waiting for the trial that never happened since they were seeking a reduction to three years? Also, who got to Ellis? He went from the law is the law to it being determinate if the person was intending harm as a burden of proof?

Obviously, putting Rosen and Weissman on trial would have opened up a Pandora's Box where Stephen Hadley and Condoleeza Rice would have to testify why using AIPAC as a backchannel for classified documents is just "business as usual". So who could have put Ellis in a position where he completely reversed his standing on the burden of proof from Franklin to Rosen/Weissman?

This stinks of corruption!

Is the DOJ deaf and mute on this issue?

The Justice Department said that the decision to drop the case had been made solely by career prosecutors in Alexandria, and that senior officials of the Obama administration had acted only to approve the recommendation.

Several other officials said, however, that while senior political appointees at the Justice Department did not direct subordinates to drop the case, they were heavily involved in the deliberations. These officials said David S. Kris, the newly appointed chief of the department’s national security division, and Dana J. Boente, the interim United States attorney in Alexandria, had conferred regularly with prosecutors and ultimately decided to accept the recommendation to abandon the case. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. was informed and raised no objections.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/us/politics/02aipac.html?_r=2

Why object when someone else is sweeping a Deep State Scandal under the rug for you?

K&R.