Official heading AIPAC probe linked to anti-Semitism case

[seemslikeadream]

By Edwin Black

WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 (JTA) — David Szady, the senior FBI counterintelligence official currently heading the controversial investigation of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is well-known to senior Jewish communal officials, who assert he has targeted Jews in the past.

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According to exclusively obtained documents, Szady was directly involved in the Ciralsky case. He is identified in the documents as the chief of the CIA’s Counterespionage Group, known as CEG, which was later accused of targeting Ciralsky for being Jewish and a supporter of Israel.

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Ciralsky’s problems began as soon as he joined the CIA’s legal staff as a junior member in early December 1996. Within days, CIA security personnel began creating a special file on Ciralsky and his Jewish background, according to the documents. One Dec. 19, 1996, internal CIA memo on Ciralsky indicated that a CIA supervisor “would like to keep current on developments for damage control purposes.”

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On June 12, 1997, a memo entitled, “Spot Report-Next Steps in the Adam Ciralsky Case” was circulated by Szady’s department, outlining what would be done to force Ciralsky from the agency. The report and the routing slips were tagged with classifications such as “sensitive,” “restricted handling” and “eyes only, no registries” thus ensuring that the documents would not end up in any formal and traceable file. Although Szady’s name is blocked out, his bureaucratic initials, C/CEG/CIC, on two routing pages plus the hand-written acknowledgment next to his initials, show he received the “Spot Report” the day it was written, according to sources with personal knowledge of the case.

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The memo also quotes one of Szady’s investigators, saying “From my experience with rich Jewish friends from college, I would fully expect Adam’s wealthy daddy to support Israeli political/social causes in some form… Israeli Bonds purchased through the United Jewish Appeal.” A week later, Sept. 19, 1997, before a security polygraph had even been administered, Szady’s CEG circulated a secret memo, saying that former CIA director “Tenet says this guy is outta here because of lack of candor… Once that’s over, it looks like we’ll be waving goodbye to our friend.”

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A handwritten note on the routing slips comments, “Great job — we should have Ciralsky’s report in the security file… This will definitely…result in termination by cancellation of contract! Thx.”


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(Award-winning investigative author and reporter Edwin Black has covered allegations of Israeli spying in the United States since the Pollard case. He is the author of the forthcoming book, “Banking on Baghdad” (Wiley), being released October 12, which chronicles 7,000 years of Iraqi history.)