Analyst charged with leaking classified information

By Mark Sherman
Associated Press


A Pentagon analyst has been indicted on charges he leaked classified military information to employees of a pro-Israel group, according to court papers made public Monday.
The six-count indictment charges that Lawrence A. Franklin conspired to disclose national defense and classified information to people not entitled to receive it, including information about potential attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq. One count accuses him of conspiring to communicate the information to an agent and representative of a foreign government.

Franklin, a 58-year-old Air Force Reserve colonel who once worked for the Pentagon’s No. 3 official, pleaded innocent to all counts Monday at a hearing in federal court in Alexandria, Va.

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III set a Sept. 6 trial.

The indictment identifies two unindicted coconspirators who were employees of a Washington lobbying organization. The men previously have been identified as executives of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying organization influential on U.S.-Israeli relations.

FBI agents twice last year searched AIPAC offices. It was once thought AIPAC might be a target of the long-running federal investigation, but that’s not the case, people familiar with the probe have said.

The indictment was handed up May 26, but not unsealed until Monday.