Wexler Urges Obama To Release Pollard
Robert Wexler, one of President Obama’s closest Jewish confidantes, urged him to release Jonathan Pollard.
The July 25 letter from Wexler, a former Democratic congressman from Florida, was released Friday by advocates for clemency for the imprisoned spy for Israel.
One of a recent flood of appeals from Congress members and former government officials, Wexler’s appeal is significant because it is the first to come from within Obama’s coterie.
Wexler, who now directs the Center for Middle East Peace, was the Obama campaign’s chief Jewish proxy in the 2008 election and remains close to the White House.
“Mr. Pollard is the only person in U.S. history to receive a life sentence for disclosing classified information to an American ally,” Wexler writes. “Having spent over 25 years in incarceration, seven of which were spent in solitary confinement, and having expressed remorse for his crimes, it is my humble opinion that Mr. Pollard has served sufficient time – both in terms of punishment for his crimes and in terms of deterrence to would-be perpetrators.”
Pollard, arrested in 1985, was convicted and sentenced to life in 1987 for spying for Israel. He recently successfully underwent kidney-related surgery.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
