Jane Harman represents California’s 36th District, which includes the famously liberal Venice Beach and the infamously rough Torrance. It is not a swing district. Obama carried it with 64% of the vote, and Harman was just reelected with 69% of the vote. The district should be represented by a progressive Democrat. But Jane Harman is not a progressive. In fact, she shouldn’t even be considered a Democrat at all because she should be ejected from the party and removed from Congress. Unless, of course, you think it’s acceptable for a member of Congress to enter into an agreement with a suspected Israeli intelligence officer to lobby the Justice Department for a reduction of charges against AIPAC spies in return for support for getting the chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Even worse, once Attorney General Alberto Gonzales learned that the NSA had legally obtained wiretaps of this conversation between Harman and a suspected Israeli intelligence officer, he intervened to quash the case in return for Harman’s support of the then-breaking illegal warrantless wiretapping NSA surveillance program. And Harman complied with her end of the deal.
According to two officials privy to the events, Gonzales said he “needed Jane” to help support the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was about to be exposed by the New York Times.
Harman, he told [then-DCI Porter] Goss, had helped persuade the newspaper to hold the wiretap story before, on the eve of the 2004 elections. And although it was too late to stop the Times from publishing now, she could be counted on again to help defend the program.
He was right.
On Dec. 21, 2005, in the midst of a firestorm of criticism about the wiretaps, Harman issued a statement defending the operation and slamming the Times, saying, “I believe it essential to U.S. national security, and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities.”
Imagine that. Harman helped keep the American people from learning about the illegal warrantless surveillance program during the crucial 2004 campaign season, thereby helping to deny us the right to have that information as we weighed our choice between John Kerry and George W. Bush. Whether you dislike her as a Democrat or as congressperson or as a traitor to her country, you should not want to see Jane Harman remain as a U.S. congressperson. As progressives, we have wanted her replaced for a long time. It did not pass our notice when she defended the NSA program back in 2005.
If you are looking for a way to support the progressive cause, you don’t have to look any further than the next primary in the 36th District of California. If Harman does not resign in disgrace, she must be defeated by a progressive in the next primary. It’s critical. She is still Chairwoman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment. I don’t think we can afford that as a party or a nation. Jane Harman’s priorities are totally fucked up and she does not belong in the Democratic Party or in Congress.
