Top prosecutor in AIPAC case quits

The top prosecutor in the case against two former AIPAC staffers is quitting.

Less than two months before the trial date Kevin DiGregory, an assistant U.S. attorney in Virginia's Eastern District, is joining the private intellectual property firm Manatt, Phelps and Phillips starting Monday.

DiGregory has led the classified information case against Steve Rosen, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's former foreign policy chief, and Keith Weissman, its former Iran analyst, since they were indicted in August 2005.

Prosecutors based the case on a never-used 1917 statute criminalizing not just the leaking but the receipt of classified information. In filings and public hearings over the years, the presiding federal judge, T.S. Ellis III, has increasingly suggested that the prosecution's case is flimsy and constitutionally fallible. JTA