The director of the Central Intelligence Agency concluded in late 2005 that a conversation picked up on a government wiretap was serious enough to require notifying Congressional leaders that Rep Jane Harman (D-CA) could become enmeshed in an investigation into Israeli influence in Washington, former government officials said Thursday. But Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told the director of the agency, Porter Goss, to hold off on briefing lawmakers about the conversation, between Rep Harman and an Israeli intelligence operative, despite a longstanding government policy to inform Congressional leaders quickly whenever a member of Congress could be a target of a national security investigation. One reason Gonzales intervened, the former officials said, was to protect Rep Harman because they saw her as a valuable administration ally in urging The New York Times not to publish an article about the National Security Agency's program of wiretapping without warrants.
