Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Pro-Israel Rep. Jane Harman To Leave Congress

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), a pro-Israel stalwart with close ties to the U.S. intelligence community, is quitting Congress.

Harman reportedly is leaving to run the Washington DC- based Woodrow Wilson Center, a preeminent foreign policy think tank.

She is replacing Lee Hamilton, also a prominent former Democratic congressman.

Harman, known for her ties with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, was embroiled in 2009 in the controversy over espionage-related charges against two former staffers.

Intelligence officials leaked to Congressional Quarterly a wiretapped conversation from 2006 that conveyed the impression that she told an Israeli agent she would intervene on behalf of the accused staffers.

Harman fiercely denied the charges and demanded the release of the full conversation. Justice Department officials noted that she was not under any investigation.

Some questioned the timing of the leaks, just before the government dropped charges against the two former AIPAC staffers, as a last-ditch bid by intelligence agencies to keep the case alive.

Harman had served as the ranking Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee at the time.

After Democrats re-took the House that year, she had hoped to become its chairwoman, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi bumped her, citing the committee’s rotation policy.

In the last election, Harman trounced a primary challenge from Marcy Winograd, a Jewish candidate who backs a binational Israel-Palestinian state.

Harman’s husband, Sidney, recently purchased Newsweek.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.