CQ: Feds tape Harman vowing to help AIPAC officials

CQ Politics is out with a report today alleging that in 2005, South Bay Rep. Jane Harman was taped promising to help lobby the Justice Department to go easy on two former AIPAC officials.

Harman was recorded by the NSA telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would "waddle into" the espionage case against the two officials "if you think it'll make a difference." In the same conversation, the suspected agent vowed to help lobby Nancy Pelosi to appoint Harman as chair of the House Intelligence Committee, CQ says.

These allegations were reported before, though with fewer details, in Time. Here's how Time phrased it in 2006:

The sources say the probe also involves whether, in exchange for the help from AIPAC, Harman agreed to help try to persuade the Administration to go lighter on the AIPAC officials caught up in the ongoing investigation. If that happened, it might be construed as an illegal quid pro quo, depending on the context of the situation.

Like the Time story, CQ's account relies on anonymous national security officials. Here's Harman's reaction:

"These claims are an outrageous and recycled canard, and have no basis in fact... I never engaged in any such activity. Those who are peddling these false accusations should be ashamed of themselves."

According to CQ, Justice Department officials determined that Harman had committed a "completed crime" in the wiretapped conversation. But the story does not make it clear what crime that would be. One of the anonymous sources hedges a bit on that at the end of the story:

"It's a story about the corruption of government -- not legal corruption necessarily, but ethical corruption."

OK then. Stay tuned.