The lawyer for a Florida-based professor accused of leading a violent Palestinian terror group will seek to embarrass the U.S. government next month by introducing evidence that his client attended numerous meetings at the White House and met with high-level figures in both political parties, including Hillary Clinton and White House political director Karl Rove, according to recent court records.

Former computer science professor Sami Al-Arian--a longstanding prime spokesman for Arab-American political causes--goes on trial next month on charges that he served as a secret leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The PIJ is a State Department-designated terrorist organization that U.S. officials charge is responsible for a rash of suicide bombings and other attacks that led to the deaths of Israeli and American civilians.

The Justice Department considers Al-Arian's case one of the most important terror cases it has brought under the USA Patriot Act--the post-9/11 law that explicitly authorized the use of secret national-security wiretaps in criminal cases. But at his trial, slated to begin in Tampa, Fla., in early June, Al-Arian's lawyer is seeking to turn the tables by hammering home his client's surprising access to the highest levels of the U.S. government--even at a time that he was a principal target of a highly sensitive FBI counterterrorism probe.

Just how much access Al-Arian had is detailed in a letter written to federal prosecutors by his lawyer, William Moffit, that was recently entered into the court record. Moffit states that Al-Arian attended meetings at the White House with both Clinton and Bush every year between 1998 and 2001. In addition, the letter states, Al-Arian also attended a briefing at the Justice Department in July 2001, met with Al Gore in November 1998 and Hillary Clinton in October 1999. It also states that President Bush sent a written apology to Al-Arian's wife in 2001 when the couple son's was denied access to the White House--reportedly because of his connection to his father.

"Each of these events occurred at a time that the government is alleging that Dr. Al-Arian was somehow a dangerous terrorist involved in a conspiracy to kill Americans," Moffit wrote in his letter.

"Dr. Al-Arian's access to these political figures coupled with the fact there was public-source information regarding many of the contentions that form the basis of the government's indictment seem to belie the notion that Dr. Al-Arian was in anyway considered by anyone in the intelligence or law enforcement communities to be any kind of threat to the United States or a threat to harm any officials of the United States."