Insurers Asked to Deny AIPAC Damage Claims over Classified Information Handling – IRmep

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- A new legal filing asks insurers to deny American Israel Public Affairs Committee liability claims. In 2009 the Obama administration dropped Espionage Act prosecutions against two AIPAC employees indicted for soliciting classified national defense information from the Pentagon. Earlier that year Steven J. Rosen, who was never formally acquitted, filed a $20 million suit against his former employer alleging it had defamed him in the news media by stating his conduct did not comport with AIPAC standards, placing him in a legal "zone of danger." AIPAC fired Rosen and abandoned their joint defense agreement, though it paid nearly $5 million for his criminal defense according to recent court filings.

As defamation suit plaintiff, Rosen has attempted to prove that soliciting and circulating classified US government information is routine at the Israel lobby group. Rosen filed evidence that AIPAC obtained classified arms delivery data from the office of the President on a yearly basis, secret US-Saudi Arabia policy accords, classified FBI investigations into financial transactions between foreign governments and US politicians for use as leverage, and a still-classified compilation of US industry trade secrets and confidential business information solicited from US corporations by the International Trade Commission.

AIPAC brought its insurance broker Norman Spencer McKernan, Inc. into a January 13 pre-trial arbitration session.

On January 28, 2011, IRmep director Grant F. Smith filed a legal brief in the District of Columbia Superior Court objecting to any future claims paid by AIPAC's insurers. "Most insurance contracts specify that 'any loss to which a contributing cause was the Insured's being engaged in an illegal occupation or illegal activity' are excluded from damage claims." The amicus brief is available from the Israel Lobby Archive at: http://www.IRmep.org/ila/rosen/01282011.pdf. Other filings may be browsed at http://www.IRmep.org/ila/rosen.

According to Smith, "Nonprofit and for profit organizations engaged in legitimate activities could be hit with higher liability insurance rates if AIPAC's insurance claims are processed. This would heap injury upon insult since many Americans and accountability groups are still wondering why questions about AIPAC's demonstrated classified information trafficking are being addressed in civil, rather than criminal, proceedings."

The Center for Policy and Law Enforcement and Israel Lobby Archive are units of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington.