Steve J. Rosen - Senior Officials Ordered To Appear at The Trial

Senior Officials Ordered To Appear At The Trial

Rosen and Weissman are accused of receiving classified information that they were not authorized to receive and disclosing it to others not authorized to receive it. They claim, in their defense, that government officials are often authorized to disclose classified information to groups like AIPAC, not in violation of the national interest but to advance it. The judge’s ruling on November 2, 2007, ordered Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and more than 10 other prominent current and former government officials to testify at the Rosen/Weissman trial, to determine whether this is true. The opinion directed that subpoenas be issued to officials who include Rice, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, former high-level Department of Defense officials Paul D. Wolfowitz and Douglas J. Feith, and Richard L. Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state. Ellis said, "Defendants claim that testimony from these current and former officials will tend to show that the reflect nothing more than the well-established official Washington practice of engaging in ‘back channel’ communication with various non governmental entities and persons for the purpose of advancing U.S. foreign policy goals…If true, the U.S. government's use of AIPAC for ‘back channel’ purposes may serve to exculpate defendants by negating the criminal states of mind the government must prove to convict defendants of the charged offenses….Defendants are entitled to show that…the meetings charged in the Indictment were simply further examples of the government's use of AIPAC as a diplomatic back channel." The ruling said that, if the government refused to produce these witnesses, “The government's refusal to comply with a subpoena in these circumstances may result in dismissal” of the case “or a lesser sanction.”