A Jewish organization has for the first time formally joined in a motion friendly to the defense of two former AIPAC staffers facing classified information leak charges.
AMCHA, headed by activist Rabbi Avi Weiss, filed a motion Wednesday to join a friend of the court brief by a number of large media groups seeking to keep the prosecution from concealing from the public evidence presented to the jury. Much of the evidence in the case against Steve Rosen, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s former foreign policy chief, and Keith Weissman, its former Iran analyst, has been gathered through eavesdropping; the two-year delay in the trial, set now to begin June 4, is due in large part to sorting through which evidence may be declassified as evidence.
Judge T.S. Ellis III’s tendency to favor the defense in some instances has led the prosecution to ask for evidence to be obscured from the public, if not the jury. A number of major media outlets, including ABC, the Associated Press and the Washington Post, and First Amendment defense groups have joined the defense in challenging the prosecution’s request.
“The American Jewish community has a special and compelling interest in ensuring that all of the evidence presented in the trial against Messrs. Rosen and Weissman be available to the public for review and scrutiny,” says the AMCHA filing.
Other Jewish groups have taken pains to distance themselves from the case; AIPAC has fired Rosen and Weissman, and the Anti-Defamation League and B’nai B’rith International have reportedly refused to cooperate with the defense. Ellis will hear arguments Monday.
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