Six Key Points to Understanding Lieberman

Jonathan Pollard wrote the following letter to a prominent Jewish leader after learning of the "Lieberman letter" signed by sixty Senators urging President Clinton not to release him. It consists of six key points which explain both the meaning and the impact of the unprincipled, politically-driven involvement of Senator Lieberman in the case of Jonathan Pollard.

The recipient of the letter provided a copy to Justice4JP for publication, on condition that he remain anonymous. He is therefore referred to only by the pseudonym "Richard".

Dear Richard:

The following represents my initial reaction to Joseph Lieberman's decision to help organize the Senate letter of January 11, l999, opposing my release:

1. Senator Lieberman has absolutely no idea as to whether or not the so-called "information" he was confidentially provided - apparently by the CIA - was the same material associated with my indictment. Certainly, if you look at the VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT's description of my crime (see Dovid Zwiebel's treatment treatment of this document on the Web), there is not even a hint of such monstrous damage to our national security – quite the opposite! So what, exactly, was Senator Lieberman shown?

   I believe my concerns are further justified by the fact that the Senator's office couldn't even assure us that they had, in fact, reviewed the specific evidence involved in my plea agreement. So what is going on here? Is Lieberman's office admitting to a simple ignorance of the facts, or a calculated indifference to them?

2. As you know, Richard, my indictment does not reflect a level of damage or compromise suggested by the latest series of unattributed leaks from the National Security establishment. Indeed, if I had been guilty of such crimes, the government had the option of indicting me for intending to harm the country – but they didn't. Could it be, then, that Lieberman is actually responding to yet another unsubstantiated damage assessment of my actions which our friends in the intelligence community are once again sharing only with "reliable" journalists and legislators?

   While I realize that our intelligence agencies do have more pressing matters to attend to at the moment, we shouldn't forget their seemingly endless fixation with blaming me for each and every intelligence disaster which occurred during the l980's. Nor, for that matter, should we underestimate the willingness of Senator Lieberman to believe them.

   After all, this is the same Joseph Lieberman who was apparently persuaded by the CIA to endorse a letter which falsely accuses me of having spied against the United States. Now, exactly where in my indictment, Richard, can this charge be found? Once again, Lieberman's office provided us with a telling answer: the Senator had been assured , we were told, that this "interpretation" of my indictment was appropriate.

   If this explanation is meant to be taken seriously, then I have only one further question to ask; namely, where did Senator Lieberman get his law degree? From some offshore diploma mill?

3. What gives Senator Lieberman the right to review and then comment on classified sentencing material that is currently being withheld from my lawyers? A need-to-know? I don't think so, Richard. A prerogative of office? Please! Do you actually believe that Lieberman's status as a U.S. senator grants him an extrajudicial right of access to sealed court records which supercedes my own constitutional right to review them? Doesn't Lieberman understand that I can't challenge the classified evidence being used against me unless I have an opportunity to see the same material he may have been shown. Believe me, Richard, the good senator knows exactly what is being done to me – and he just doesn't give a damn!

   This is why I have come to the conclusion that Lieberman's refusal to press for the declassification of these documents – several of which are being selectively leaked to the media as we speak – makes him an accessory to the government's continuing assault on my due process rights

   Remember, Lieberman is not just an ordinary run-of-the-mill legislator. Whether justified or not, his reputation as the Senate's "conscience" would have given him all the moral authority he needed to embarrass the Administration into opening the files I am legally entitled to see. But Lieberman didn't do that, did he?

   To the extent then, that Lieberman's opposition to my release will be interpreted as a tacit endorsement of the Government's stand on the records issue, he has openly joined the ranks of all those arrogant , faceless National Security bureaucrats who have been systematically cutting my constitutional rights to fit their anti-Israel political agenda.

4. If what I did was so horrendous, and if Israel was so criminally irresponsible in their handling of the material I allegedly provided her, then why hasn't Senator Lieberman moved for either a termination or, at the very least, a severe reduction of U.S. intelligence-sharing with Israel? Wouldn't that be the appropriate thing to do if Lieberman truly believed my operation was as damaging as his rhetoric suggests?

   Unfortunately, Lieberman doesn't even have a rudimentary grasp of what my case actually involved. If anything, his views on the matter appear to reflect an almost blind acceptance of the CIA's rather self-serving version of the affair. Perhaps this is why Senator Lieberman always rejected my claim that it was in the Agency-led, undeclared U.S. intelligence embargo against Jerusalem, back in the mid-80's, which had forced the Israelis to authorize my operation. Of course, when Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, the former Deputy Director of the CIA, subsequently confirmed that he had, in fact, implemented such an anti-Israel initiative, I was half expecting Senator Lieberman to reassess his attitude towards me - but for some strange reason this never occurred.

   I suspect what I find most perplexing of all about Lieberman is that he has consistently refused to provide us with even one clear-cut example of harm I did to our national security that would justify the type of sentence I received. Where, we've asked, are the dead agents, broken codes, ruined collection programs, and compromised technologies which one would expect to see littering the intelligence landscape, if I were truly responsible for all the damage my enemies have publicly attributed to me? While Lieberman has yet to respond to this challenge, his office has always assured us that the senator's position is based on "facts" which he, of course, is not at liberty to disclose because of their "sensitivity". How convenient!

   Well, I guess the only conclusion I can reach at this point is that Lieberman is either the most gullible individual ever elected to the Senate or he simply decided to slaughter the truth on the altar of political expediency. Maybe somebody should remind this so-called "orthodox Jew" that human sacrifice is one of those old Canaanite practices which we were expressly forbidden to observe. Then again, Lieberman probably wouldn't believe this unless it was confirmed by the CIA…

5. Didn't Senator Lieberman realize that his Senate letter is a potential arrow aimed at the heart of the U.S.- Israel special relationship? Indeed, the portrayal of Israel as a manipulative foreign power pressuring the U.S. into doing something against her best interests is a canard that our worst enemies have been trying to promote in the American media for years. And now we have none other than Senator Joseph Lieberman endorsing this malignant representation of the Jewish state! What in the world was going through his head when he decided to participate in this blackening of Israel's good name? Did he really think that it would never be know; or did he just not bother to sit down and actually consider what he was doing?

6. How is it that Senator Lieberman's strenuous defense of the President's right to due process and fair play hasn't been paralleled by a comparable defense of my own right to these guarantees? Wouldn't this have been a simple, straightforward position for Lieberman to have taken with regard to my case? Who could have criticized him for having chosen principle over pragmatism when it came to my plea for access to the record?

   Well, it seems that the political limb which Senator Lieberman was willing to walk out on for Clinton just didn't extend far enough for me. What a telling indictment of Lieberman's so-called "conscience"! Is he really so insecure that he won't even consider the possibility that my situation could potentially undermine our people's right to judicial equity?

   Seriously, Richard, is Lieberman so scared of his hyphenated shadow that he can't comprehend the consequences of abandoning an individual like me, who has been singled out for special treatment precisely because he's an American Jew who spied for Israel?

   I guess when all is said and done, Senator Lieberman just lacked the integrity needed to separate his political ambitions from his duty to protect the rights of an unpopular co-religionist from the depredations of an unscrupulous, anti-Semitic prosecutor. Then again, the fact that Lieberman is a self-proclaimed "defender" of our people just makes his behavior towards me all the more reprehensible.

   Why do I say this? Because rather than protest the obvious application of a dual standard of justice against the Jewish community, Lieberman has chosen, instead, to cravenly wrap himself in the largest American flag he can find , hoping thereby to inoculate himself from my "disease" of dual loyalty. What a foolish delusion! Doesn't Lieberman understand that as long as he remains in "golus" his loyalty will always be questioned.

Stay well.
Jonathan