Did Jesse Jackson Get Money from Libya?
Salon reports:
(UPDATED)As a civil defamation lawsuit pitting the American Israel Public Affairs Committee against one of its former executives continues to unfold, a new court filing in the case makes an intriguing reference to allegedly "unlawful cash payments from Libyan diplomats to officials of an American presidential campaign" in 1984.
Steven Rosen, the former AIPAC official who is the plaintiff in the case, now tells Salon that he was referring to the campaign of Jesse Jackson, who took on Gary Hart and Walter Mondale in the 1984 Democratic primaries.
There is no evidence that Jackson's campaign did anything improper, let alone illegal. But here is what we do know, and what Rosen is alleging.
Rosen, as first reported by The Forward, argues in the new filing that AIPAC had never given him rules about the receipt of classified information from government officials (the backstory of the lawsuit is not entirely relevant to the Libyan issue, but is explained here). To establish this fact, the filing cites three previous examples when Rosen had received classified information:
The new court filing includes a March 2005 letter to AIPAC’s top leadership in which Rosen, then feeling the changing wind in the lobby’s leadership, asked AIPAC leaders and senior officials to bear in mind that he was never provided with written or oral guidelines regarding the receipt of confidential information.
Furthermore, he reminds them that the issue was raised at least three times in the past. Once was in 1984, when Rosen received information from a government official “concerning unlawful cash payments from Libyan diplomats to officials of an American presidential campaign.” Rosen notes that the FBI approached him on this issue. Yet, the letter claims, he received nothing but understanding and support from his superiors in AIPAC then.
Rosen, who was not immediately available for further comment, tells us that the above section of the lawsuit is a reference to Jackson's campaign.
