Today, CREW asked the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) to investigate Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) after Congressional Quarterly reported that a tape exists in which Rep. Harman offers to influence a Justice Department investigation into two former American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) employees in exchange for AIPAC’s help in securing her the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee. CREW also asked the Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility to investigate why the case against Rep. Harman was dropped.  Our complaint can be found here.

Rep. Harman may have committed bribery and may have violated House rules prohibiting members from engaging in ex parte communications with executive or independent agency officials on the merits of matters under their formal consideration; failure to uphold the Code of Ethics for Government Service, and acting in a manner that does not reflect creditably on the House.

CREW asked OPR to investigate whether the Department of Justice dropped the investigation into Rep. Harman based on political considerations, rather than a lack of evidence, as has previously been reported.

When we sent our requests for these investigations, CREW's Melanie Sloan said:

If Rep. Harman agreed to try to influence an ongoing criminal investigation in return for help securing a committee chairmanship, her conduct not only violates federal law and House rules, but also her oath to uphold the Constitution. As plum a position as the chair of the Intelligence Committee may be, the political gamesmanship necessary to win it must stop well before the grand jury’s door.  This whole sorry episode is also yet another example – as if we needed any more – of the depths to which the Bush Justice Department was willing to sink to advance its political agenda.

Congressional Quarterly's CQ Politics broke the story yesterday.  Below are key excerpts:

Rep. Jane Harman , the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington.

Harman was recorded saying she would "waddle into" the AIPAC case "if you think it'll make a difference," according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript.

In exchange for Harman's help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, which the Democrats were heavily favored to win.

And, this section begins to unravel the role of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales:

What is new is that Harman is said to have been picked up on a court-approved NSA tap directed at alleged Israel covert action operations in Washington.

And that, contrary to reports that the Harman investigation was dropped for "lack of evidence," it was Alberto R. Gonzales, President Bush's top counsel and then attorney general, who intervened to stop the Harman probe.

Why? Because, according to three top former national security officials, Gonzales wanted Harman to be able to help defend the administration's warrantless wiretapping program, which was about break in The New York Times and engulf the White House.

As for there being "no evidence" to support the FBI probe, a source with first-hand knowledge of the wiretaps called that "bull****."