Once again thanks to Juan Cole for the heads up. Jane Harman, the Rep being accused of taking bribes from Israeli spies was on NPR yesterday to talk about the situation.

She was in full plausible deniability mode. She kept asserting that she didn't know if such phone calls with the Israeli agent existed. She's not denying the existence of such calls. She's saying that wants to know what the NSA has on her before she says whether or not the phone calls existed. Yeah. That sounds like an innocent person. If she admits to wrongdoing A, but the NSA recorded her performing wrongdoing B then suddenly she's on the hook for A+B instead of just B.

Then she slipped up. (Transcript from CQ)

MR. SIEGEL: But, indeed, if what happened was, initially, your phone wasn't tapped; the person you were talking with was being tapped. And if that was an investigation of a foreign agent, is it realistic to think that anybody is going to release a completely unredacted transcript of that conversation?

REP. HARMAN: Well, let's find out. I mean, the person I was talking to was an American citizen. I know something about the law and wiretaps. There are two ways you do it. One is you get a FISA warrant, which has to start with a foreign suspected terrorist, a non-American foreigner. If this was FISA, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, that would have had to happen.

MR. SIEGEL: But if you know that it was an American citizen -

REP. HARMAN: If it was Article III, FBI wiretap, that's different. But I don't know what this was. And I don't know why this was done. And I don't know who the sources are who are claiming that this happened are and I think -

MR. SIEGEL: But you are saying that you know it was an American citizen. So that would suggest that you know that there was a -

REP. HARMAN: Well, I know that anyone I would have talked to about, you know, the AIPAC prosecution would have been an American citizen. I didn't talk to some foreigner about it.

MR. SIEGEL: You never spoke to an Israeli? You never spoke to an Israeli about this.

REP. HARMAN: Well, I speak to Israelis from time to time. I just came back from a second trip to Israel in this calendar year. I've been to the Middle East region as a member of Congress 22 times and was in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Israel and Turkey just a week ago.

She knows exactly what conversation she was having because she knows it was an American citizen. Kudos to Siegel for pressing her on that slip up! As Juan Cole points out, "an American citizen recruited by Mossad would still be an Israeli spy or agent, run by an Israeli field officer." Her flimsy attempt to cover her slip doesn't save her.

I hope this investigation lands on her quickly. If she is innocent, then I'll be happy to apologize, but it is far more likely that she's guilty. If she is found guilty then I want to see her removed from Congress and imprisoned. Our government is controlled by corrupt politicians and lobbies and we need to find a way to stop it.