Posted on 05/26/2003 9:17:56 PM PDT by Nachum
As supporters of Jonathan Pollard prepare for a prayer rally on his behalf at the Western Wall on June 4, it appears that one of the most important questions surrounding his case has been answered. Former federal prosecutor John Loftus, in an article in the June issue of Moment Magazine, writes the following:
"There is a good reason why neither Congress nor the American Jewish leadership supports the release of Jonathan Pollard from prison: They all were told a lie - a humongous Washington whopper of a lie. The lie was [that] Pollard had supposedly given Israel a list of every American spy inside the Soviet Union... Soviet agents in Israel, posing as Israeli intelligence agents, passed the information to Moscow, which then wiped out American human assets in the Soviet Union...
"A week after [Pollard was sentenced to life in prison], the Washington Times reported that the United States had identified Shabtai Kalmanovich as the Soviet spy in Israel who supposedly worked for the Mossad but was actually working for the KGB; he had betrayed American secrets to Moscow. Washington insiders winked knowingly at one another: Pollard's contact in Israel had been caught. Just to make sure that Pollard was blamed, U.S. intelligence sources, several months later, leaked word to the press of the Kalmanovich connection...
Citing 'American intelligence sources,' the UPI announced that the 'sensitive intelligence material relayed to Israel by Jonathan Pollard had reached the KGB.'"
Loftus then fires off his bombshell:
"But it was all untrue. Every bit of it. Pollard wasn't the serial killer. The Jew didn't do it. It was one of their own WASPs - Aldrich Ames, a drunken senior CIA official who sold the names of America's agents to the Russians for cash. Pollard was framed for Ames' crime, while Ames kept on drinking and spying for the Soviets for several more years… Ames was arrested in February 1994, and confessed to selling out American agents in the Soviet Union, but not all of them. It was only logical to assume that Pollard had betrayed the rest of them, as one former CIA official admitted shortly after Ames' arrest…
"No one dreamed that yet another high-level Washington insider had sold us out to Soviet intelligence. Years passed, and eventually a Russian defector told the truth. A senior FBI official - Special Agent Robert Hanssen - had betrayed the rest of our agents. Hanssen was arrested in February 2001, and soon confessed in order to avoid the death penalty. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole."
Loftus then writes that a low-level decision was finally made in the Navy's intelligence service to re-examine the Pollard case, and "with sickening chagrin, the Navy discovered that the evidence needed to clear Pollard had been under its nose all along" - namely, that Pollard did not have the special "blue stripe" clearance needed for access to the room in which the list of secret American agents inside Russia was kept. "There is no way on earth," Loftus concludes, "that Jonathan Pollard could have entered the file room, let alone the safe where the list was kept."
Loftus also writes that he then "began to realize that Pollard's tale was only the beginning of a much bigger story about a major America intelligence scandal" - a cover-up of the deep ties between Saudi Arabia and terrorists such as Osama Bin-Laden. "Whenever the FBI or CIA came close to uncovering the Saudi terrorist connection," Loftus writes, "their investigations were mysteriously terminated. In hindsight, I can only conclude that some of our own Washington bureaucrats have been protecting the Al Qaeda leadership and their oil-rich Saudi backers from investigation for more than a decade."
Loftus continues:
"I am not the only one to reach this conclusion. In his autobiography, Oliver North confirmed that every time he wanted to do something about terrorism, [then-Defense Secretary Weinberger, whose secret memo led to Pollard's life sentence] stopped him because it might upset the Saudis and jeopardize the flow of oil to the U.S. "John O'Neill, a former FBI agent and our nation's top Al Qaeda expert, stated in a 2001 book written by Jean Charles Brisard, a noted French intelligence analyst, that everything we wanted to know about terrorism could be found in Saudi Arabia. O'Neill warned the Beltway bosses repeatedly that if the Saudis were to continue funding Al Qaeda, it would end up costing American lives, according to several intelligence sources. As long as the oil kept flowing, they just shrugged. Outraged by the Saudi cover-up, O'Neill quit the FBI and became the new chief of security at the World Trade Center. In a bitter irony, the man who could have exposed his bosses' continuous cover-up of the Saudi-Al Qaeda link was himself killed by Al Qaeda on 9/11..." "Pollard never thought he was betraying his country. And he never did, although he clearly violated its laws. He just wanted to help protect Israelis and Americans from terrorists. Now in prison for nearly two decades, Pollard, who is in his late 40s, grows more ill year by year. If, as seems likely, American bureaucrats choose to fight a prolonged delaying action over a new hearing, Pollard will probably die in prison. There are people in power inside the Beltway who have been playing for time. Time for them ran out on 9/11. Sooner or later, they are going to be held accountable. I hope that Pollard lives to see it."
The full text of Pollard's attorneys' largely-laudatory response to Loftus' article is available at "www.jonathanpollard.org/".
And you know this, of course, having been on the inside of the Pollard case for all these long years :).
Actually, I think it's put out by his lawyer. There's probably not all that much in it that could be shot down. That would just be stupid.
You can't be a little bit pregnant, and you can't be a little bit traitorous. There is no question of degree. Had Pollard not been discovered, it is likely he would have been given access to other classified information later in his career. Are you naive enough to believe that he would not have provided it to the Israelis? The psychological basis of an agent relationship is the ability to the agent to rationalize his actions, and if he were unable to do so, then his handlers would have no doubt helped. I'm not surprised to hear Pollard still spouting his rationalizations - but I'm appalled by the willingness of so many others, like you, to trumpet the same line of bravo sierra.
Let me make it simple for you: Pollard took an oath to his country - this country and on the basis of that oath, was given access to classified information, in order to do his job as a low-level analyst. Without authorization, and contrary to all the conditions placed upon his access to that classified information, he stole that information and shared it with a foreign power. Whether or not information is shared elsewhere on an official basis with that government is completely irrelevant - Those decisions are made and reviewed at a level well above Pollard's pay grade. Pollard was, and is, a traitor - plain and simple.
Many of us did in fact call for the execution of Walker, Hannsen, and (especially) Ames. I find your implication that hostility to Pollard is anti-semitic ("one set of rules for one country") to be extremely offensive. I am sympathetic to the Israeli cause - but that sympathy ends when they conduct hostile espionage operations against the nation which has been their most stalwart supporter - especially since, absent U.S. support, Israel would probably no longer exist as a nation.
Yes, we do collect intelligence in many countries - But we do not receive hundreds of billions of dollars in annual aid from any of them. By conducting hostile operations against us, including both intelligence operations and semi-clandestine efforts to influence U.S. policy, they demonstrate an astounding lack of gratitude for all that we have done for them.
Neither do I hear any kind of recognition that US spies in other countries (they are wherever the US has interests, you know) actually should be rounded up and shot.
Uh, yeah - I did know that. I'm not sure what your point is, however. Are you implying that foreign agents, providing information to U.S. intelligence organizations, would not be executed if they were discovered by their own governments? That's pretty naive. Why should we not demand the same for those who betray this country?
Pollard gave the Israelis so much information for the $50,000 he was paid that his handler had to lease a high capacity photocopier.
The information in question jeopardized no agents, no secrets were "passed on to China" (or Russia for that matter)
You're fairly sure then that sources and methods were not revealed in the raw intel that Pollard turned over to a KGB-penetrated Mossad? Well, as long as you're sure...
Pollard's life sentence is also disproportionate even when compared to the sentences of those who committed far more serious offences by spying for enemy nations.
| Name | Country Spied For | Sentence/Punishment | Time Served Before Release* |
| Jonathan Pollard | Israel | Life imprisonment | |
| Michael Schwartz | Saudi Arabia | Discharged from Navy | No time served. |
| Peter Lee | China | 1 year in halfway house | No jail time. |
| Samuel Morison | Great Britain | 2 years | 3 months |
| Phillip Selden | El Salvador | 2 years | |
| Steven Baba | South Africa | 8 years; reduced to 2 years | 5 months |
| Sharon Scranage | Ghana | 5 years; reduced to 2 years | 8 months |
| Jean Baynes | Phillipines | 41 months | 15 months |
| Abdul Kader Helmy | Egypt | 4 years | 2 years |
| Geneva Jones | Liberia | 37 months | |
| Frederick Hamilton | Ecuador | 37 months | |
| Joseph Brown | Phillipines | 6 years | |
| Michael Allen | Phillipines | 8 years | |
| Robert Kim | South Korea | 9 years | |
| Thomas Dolce | South Africa | 10 years | 5.2 years |
| Steven Lalas | Greece | 14 years |
* Time served before release is shown where known. Other cases of early release exist.
| Name | Country Spied For | Sentence | Time Served Before Release* |
| James Wood | Soviet Union | 2 years | |
| Sahag Dedyan | Soviet Union | 3 years | |
| Randy Jeffries | Soviet Union | 3-9 years | |
| Amarylis Santos | Cuba | 3½ years | |
| Joseph Santos | Cuba | 4 years | |
| Mariano Faget | Cuba | 5 years | |
| Brian Horton | Soviet Union | 6 years | |
| Alejandro Alonso | Cuba | 7 years | |
| William Bell | Poland | 8 years | |
| Alfred Zoho | East Germany | 8 years | |
| Nikolay Ogarodnikova | Soviet Union | 8 years | |
| Francis X. Pizzo | Soviet Union | 10 years | |
| Daniel Richardson | Soviet Union | 10 years | |
| Ernst Forbich | East Germany | 15 years | |
| William Whalen | Soviet Union | 15 years | |
| Edwin Moore | Soviet Union | 15 years | |
| Troung Dinh Ung | North Vietnam | 15 years | |
| Ronald Humphrey | North Vietnam | 15 years | |
| Kurt Alan Stand | East Germany | 17½ years | |
| Robert Lipka | Soviet Union | 18 years | |
| David Barnett | Soviet Union | 18 years | |
| Svetlana Ogarodnikova | Soviet Union | 18 years | |
| Albert Sombolay | Iraq & Jordan | 19 years | |
| Richard Miller | Soviet Union | 20 years | 6 years |
| Theresa Maria Squillacote | East Germany | 21.8 years | |
| Sarkis Paskallan | Soviet Union | 22 years | |
| Harold Nicholson | Soviet Union | 23 years | |
| David Boone | Soviet Union | 24 years | |
| Ana Belen Montes | Cuba | 25 years | |
| Clayton Lonetree | Soviet Union | 25 years | 9 years |
| Michael Walker | Soviet Union | 25 years | 15 years |
| Bruce Ott | Soviet Union | 25 years | |
| Kelly Warren | Hungary & Czechoslovakia |
25 years | |
| Earl Pitts | Soviet Union | 27 years | |
| H.W. Boachanhaupi | Soviet Union | 30 years | |
| Roderick Ramsay | Hungary & Czechoslovakia |
36 years | |
| James Hall | Soviet Union & East Germany |
40 years | |
| Christopher Boyce | Soviet Union | 40 years | |
| William Kampiles | Soviet Union | 40 years | 19 years |
| Veldik Enger | Soviet Union | 50 years | |
| R.P. Charnyayev | Soviet Union | 50 years | |
| Marian Zacharski | Poland | Life | 4 years |
| Aldrich Ames | Soviet Union | Life | |
| Robert Hanssen | Soviet Union | Life |
* Time served before release is shown where known. Other cases of early release exist.
Aldrich Ames' treatment was far more benign, and (except for a relatively short period of time during debriefing) did not include the rigours of long years of solitary; nor was he ever subjected to the harsh conditions of "K" Unit at Marion - even though his offence was far more serious.
Agree so far? I hope so! If not, give me fifty (virtual) push-ups, Jarhead!
Anyway, here's the jump...
(3) Pollard is no longer a seceret, and the stories told aren't so secret anymore if true, or those stories are false otherwise.
Thus (4a) Since the secrets out, he should be released already! Leaving him in just creates high interest in what should be secret. It calls attention to things we don't want attention called to.
Or (4b) he's being held on false pretenses.
Either way, let him go and let the attention of onlookers be dissapated.
My impression is that spies (from all over) are actually discovered from time to time, in all kinds of places. My impression is also that it's relatively uncommon that they're shot (or even imprisoned forever), at least in friendly countries - I imagine matters would be different in places such as North Korea or China or Iran. But most western countries, if you do a simple count, do not even have the death penalty, including for espionage.
It is.
You're shameless in your support of a convicted spy who betrayed the U.S.
And here's why: an American might be shameless if he supported spying against the US (given that all the facts were on the table and all that kind of thing), but a foreign government? What you're in effect demanding is that the Israeli government live by American interest. That is not the case, regardless the fact that many people seem to have some notion that the US actually owns Israel. Israel is another state, looking out for its own interests.
.........................................
Pollard Has Been Punished Enough
March 8, 1994 - Theodore Olson, Esq. - The Wall St. Journal
It is plain than columnist Al Hunt and the anti-Pollard faction within the Clinton administration for whom he is giving voice do not like Jonathan Pollard (“President Clinton, Don’t Free the Traitor Pollard, February 24). But his rationale for opposing clemency is mostly misinformation and ignorance, and his conclusion implicitly concedes the shallowness of his convictions.
As Mr. Pollard’s attorney, I offer these counterbalancing facts:
First, the matter of motives and money. Mr. Hunt’s carefully chosen litany of phrases such as “big bucks,” “well-paid” and “well-heeled” produces a profoundly false impression. As Mr. Hunt knows, Mr. Pollard sought out the Israelis and volunteered to give, not sell, information to Israel about nuclear, chemical and biological weapons under construction by Iraq and others for use against Israel. Six months down the line, Pollard was persuaded to accept paltry sums - pocket change compared with what Washington journalists routinely receive for weekend television appearances. Intelligence services know that it is impossible to control idealists - and it is standard procedure to corrupt them with money. Mr. Pollard was wrong to acquiesce, but everyone who has studied the record objectively knows that he acted as he did because he could not stand the implications of silence in the face of another Holocaust, not for money.
Second, Mr. Hunt repeatedly uses the term “traitor.” That word describes one who commits treason, the only crime considered so egregious that is mentioned in our Constitution. It is defined by law as committing war against the U.S. or aiding its enemies. It is punishable by death. Mr. Pollard did not commit, nor was he charged with, treason. Even the government has admitted that is use of the word “treason” and “traitor” to describe Mr. Pollard was wrong and “regrettable.” The court that reviewed Mr. Pollard’s case, whose opinion Mr. Hunt quotes, said that the “traitor” could justifiably be called “rank hyperbole.”
Third, Mr. Hunt’s comparison of Mr. Pollard to the Aldrich Ames case is appalling. Mr. Ames allegedly aided the Soviet Union when they were implacable enemies of the U.S.: Mr. Pollard helped one of our closest allies. Mr. Ames is said to have betrayed American agents: Mr. Pollard told Israel about instruments of mass destruction against Jews. Mr. Ames purportedly took millions of dollars and was motivated by greed: Mr. Pollard gave defensive information to save a people that had been nearly exterminated 50 years ago. What can Mr. Hunt be thinking?
Fourth, Mr. Hunt has mischaracterized the court decision regarding the government’s violation of the Pollard plea bargain. Mr. Pollard’s appeal was rejected as untimely, not because it was lacking in merit. All three judges who considered the appeal expressed considerable skepticism concerning the government’s conduct. One of the three went so far as to call Mr. Pollard’s treatment “a fundamental miscarriage of justice.” The fact is that the government blatantly betrayed Mr. Pollard and its written contract with him. It made three promises, and broke them all. It agreed to represent to the sentencing judge that Mr. Pollard’s cooperation had been of “considerable value” to “enforcement of the espionage laws,” but did precisely the opposite, denigrating the value and motivation for that compensation - listing it among factors “compelling a substantial sentence.” It promised to limit its sentencing argumentation to the “facts and circumstances” of Mr. Pollard’s offense, but instead heaped savage vituperation on his motives on his motives, character and “arrogance.” Finally, it agreed not to seek a sentence of life in prison, but obtained exactly such a sentence by, among other things, demanding a sentence commensurate with the crime of treason.
Fifth, Mr. Hunt rejects as “bogus and irrelevant” the assertion that Mr. Pollard’s sentence was excessive. He could not be more wrong. Mr. Pollard has served more than eight years, mostly in solitary confinement in the nation’s harshest prison. No one who gave defense information to an ally has ever been punished so severely. The government did not even charge him with harming or having reason to know that his actions would harm the U.S. Once again, Mr. Hunt has outpaces Mr. Pollard’s prosecutors by pressing to maintain a level of punishment that the prosecutors promised not to seek.
Sixth, it is curious that Mr. Hunt thinks that the information Mr. Pollard gave away “was so sensitive that officials still insist they can’t provide specifics.” What officials? The Office of Naval Intelligence has said that much of Mr. Pollard’s information “was declassified during the Gulf War.” Mr. Pollard’s chief prosecutor has urged publicly that it all be declassified.
Finally, after all of Mr. Hunt’s rhetoric, his main grievance seems to be that Israel has failed to “come clean and acknowledge what a despicable act Pollard performed.” If it did so, he concludes, then “clemency [would] be in order.” This is an amazing conclusion because Mr. Pollard himself has admitted that what he did was wrong and has expressed great remorse for his actions. And two successive Israeli prime ministers have put in writing formal requests for mercy - not forgiveness - for the Pollard affair. The significance of these extraordinary official requests cannot have been lost on President Clinton - who, incidentally, may not be anxious to acknowledge publicly that the U.S. has spied on Israel. What more does Mr. Hunt want? Some sort of Chinese Communist public act of self-abasement?
There is more, but too little space to say it all. Defense Secretary-nominee Bobby Inman has publicly admitted that he cut off Israel from promised defensive information as retaliation for Israel’s destruction of Iraq’s nuclear reactors. (Maybe Mr. Hunt can tell us how many America soldiers would have died in the Persian Gulf had Israel not taken that action.) Mr. Pollard stepped into the breach and opened the spigot that Mr. Inman had closed. He had no right to do so, but voices as diverse as Cardinal Law, Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, Benjamin Hooks, Father Drinan, Sen. Carol Mosely-Braun, Pat Robertson, dozens of Members of Congress, the city councils of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, and two Israeli prime ministers have pleaded for an end to his punishment. Apparently many officials at State, Justice and the White House now agree.
The fundamental issue is when we can stop punishing a man who broke the law to expose a massive, malignant and malicious arms buildup so that a beleaguered people could defend themselves from weapons of terror and mass destruction. It might take some courage from President Clinton to do the right thing, but Mr. Pollard has been punished enough.
Theodore B. Olsen Esq.
Theodore B. Olson is the former lead attorney for Jonathan Pollard.
………………………………………………
The document below was written by a former Pollard attorney, Theodore Olsen, to counter a 1993 NJCRAC position paper on the Pollard case. The document is as relevant today as when it was originally written. Many of the old lies that it deals with are still being circulated today by the same Jewish sources.
Mr. Lawrence Rubin
Executive Vice Chairman – NJCRAC
National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council
443 Park Avenue South
New York New York 10016-7322
April 9, 1993
RE: Jonathan J. Pollard
Dear Mr. Rubin:
As you know, we represent Jonathan J. Pollard. We have received a copy of the Jerome Chanes NJCRAC memorandum of March 23, 1993 disseminated to NJCRAC and CJF member agencies entitled "The Pollard Case: Myths and Facts." The Chanes memorandum states that it is intended to "provide accurate information" about the "substantive issues" involved in the Pollard case. However, it contains many materially inaccurate and damaging statements concerning Mr. Pollard and his case. We therefore request that you circulate this letter as soon as possible to all of the member agencies that received the Chanes memorandum
The "Myths and Facts" memorandum states that there has been an "unfortunate pattern of misrepresentation" concerning the Pollard case. This regrettable and entirely gratuitous innuendo is apparently intended to accuse Mr. Pollard's supporters of misrepresentations. It is not true. Naturally, in any highly visible case such as this involving many people working to achieve a common objective, there may be misconceptions that develop. But the Pollard supporters have made every effort to supply scrupulously accurate information concerning his case. In fact, the NJCRAC memorandum contains more errors and misleading perceptions than anything we have seen. That is why it is so important for you to correct it by distributing this response.
2. Disproportionality of sentence
Mr. Pollard's sentence of life in prison is grossly disproportionate to punishments in comparable cases. Your wholly inaccurate and distorted rejection of this fact ignores both the facts and fundamental principles of our criminal justice system.
You assert that "comparisons between Pollard's sentence and sentences meted out to others . . . are inappropriate," and that such an analysis of the proportionality of Mr. Pollard's sentence is improper as a jurisprudential matter. That, of course, is nonsense It is a fundamental principle of justice and jurisprudence that the law should treat similarly situated individuals similarly and that punishments, insofar as possible, should be relatively equal and proportionate. The fact that Mr. Pollard's sentence is completely out of scale with those imposed for comparable offenses is a highly salient consideration in his efforts to seek a commutation of his sentence.
Moreover, the Supreme court of the United States has held as a matter of constitutional "principle that a criminal sentence must be proportional to the crime for which the defendant has been convicted-" Solem V. Helm, 463 U.S. 277, 290 (1983) (emphasis added) . The Court has struck down as unconstitutional punishments that are "significantly disproportionate to [the] crime," id. at 303, based on a comparison "with sentences imposed on other criminals" Id. At 292; see also Harmelin V. Michigan, 111 S. Ct. 2680, 2702-05 (1991) (Kennedy, J., concurring) (reiterating that the constitution forbids "extreme sentences that are 'grossly disproportionate' to the crime") - It is well recognized that disproportionality in sentencing when compared to others convicted of similar crimes is "fundamentally unfair," and accordingly, it "has also been a fundamental part of . . . the clemency philosophy." Kobil, The Quality of Mercy Strained: Wrestling the Pardoning Power from the King, 69 Tex. L. R. S69, 627 (1991).*
[*NOTE: For example: President Carter commuted the 20 year sentence of Watergate conspirator G. Gordon Liddy after 4 years and 3 months because Liddy had served much more time than the other Watergate participants. Id. The reason given by the White House Counsel was that "[it] was a clear case of unfair disparity." Id. (citations omitted).]
You also argue that Mr. Pollard's sentence was not disproportionate. But that is clearly incorrect. As thoroughly documented in Mr. Pollard's commutation application, his sentence was manifestly inconsistent with the punishment historically imposed for disclosing intelligence information to an ally of the United States. Indeed, the more than seven-year period that Mr. Pollard has already served is much closer to the typical sentence for comparable offenses. The only other life sentences imposed for espionage in the United States of which we are aware -- including each of the instances cited in your memorandum -- involved individuals who spied for the Soviet Union (or Eastern block countries that were under its control) during the Cold War. We believe that Mr. Pollard is the only person in the history of our Nation to receive a life sentence for giving information to an ally.
3. The Pertinence of the Fact that Mr. Pollard Spied for a Close Ally
Your memorandum asserts that it is irrelevant that Mr. Pollard provided intelligence information to Israel, one of the United States closest allies, as opposed to a country that is hostile to the United States. That assertion is legally incorrect and morally perplexing. While it may be a crime to disclose any classified information to anyone, both the law and society recognize the difference between efforts to harm the United States by giving information to its enemies and supplying data to an ally to help save the lives of victims of aggression.
You contend that "as a legal matter, the law on espionage does not distinguish between allies and enemies. . . ." But the law, including the Constitution of the United States most certainly does make such a distinction. The most serious espionage crime is treason, which, unlike Mr. Pollard's offense, is punishable by death, and is defined explicitly in the Constitution as consisting "only in levying war against [the United States), or in adhering to their Enemies [or] giving them Aid and Comfort." (emphasis added) . The statutes on espionage also recognize that providing information to an enemy is different in kind from and more reprehensible than supplying information to a country that is an ally of the United States, explicitly singling out the former for special treatment. Compare 18 U.S.C. 794(b) and 794(a); 18 U.S.C. 2382. The law distinguishes between those whose conduct occurred with reason to believe it may harm the United States. Mr. Pollard was not charged with that offense.
Moreover, the vastly harsher sentences imposed on individuals who have committed espionage against the United States an behalf of hostile nations demonstrate the obvious and fundamental principle that spying for an enemy is a far more egregious offense that deserves more severe punishment than providing intelligence data to an ally. As discussed above, life sentence have historically been reserved exclusively for individuals who have spied for countries that are hostile to the United States, while persons who, like Mr. Pollard, assisted allies have been subjected to far less severe punishments that more closely approximate the time that Mr. Pollard has already served in prison.
Your memorandum also misleadingly suggests that Mr. Pollard's reliance on the hostile nation/ally dichotomy is an attempt by him to excuse or justify his conduct. But that is not Mr. Pollard's point at all. Mr. Pollard acknowledges that he violated an important law of the United States. He pleaded guilty to that offense and agreed to cooperate fully with the government's investigation of his conduct. He has repeatedly expressed regret and remorse for his conduct and for any and all harm that his offense may have caused. Mr. Pollard is not arguing that his unlawful conduct in justified because he was motivated only by a desire to save lives.
But those who ask for an humanitarian commutation of Mr. Pollard's sentence to a severe punishment equivalent to the punishment already imposed are surely entitled to emphasize that Mr. Pollard's actions, admittedly wrong, was inspired by the desire to protect against violent aggression, to prevent a holocaust and to allow the people of Israel to defend themselves. This is a legitimate and important basis for the sentence commutation being sought from President Clinton.
4. Conditions of Incarceration
The fact that Mr. Pollard has been in solitary confinement for several years is not a "myth." And it is not a "myth" that Mr. Pollard has been incarcerated in the nation's harshest maximum security prison. Mr. Pollard did not ask to be placed in Marion prison -- where security measures are necessary to protect him from anti-Semitic prison gangs. Moreover, NJCRAC should understand that it is exceedingly difficult for Mr. Pollard to chronicle his specific, day-to-day prison experiences without exposing himself to repercussions. It should be obvious to anyone that solitary confinement in a prison containing the most violent and vicious criminals in the nation is not a circumstance that should be ignored or labeled as a "myth."
5. Parole
As a technical matter, Mr. Pollard was not sentenced to "life without possibility of parole," and parole may legally be considered in 1995. But your implication that the possibility of parole makes commutation unnecessary - is incorrect and misguided. The law enforcement and intelligence agency officials who will be given the opportunity to express themselves on the subject have indicated that they will oppose parole. Immediately following sentencing, the U.S. Attorney said that Mr. Pollard would "never see the light of day." Parole is a virtual impossibility under these circumstances. Your emphasis on the highly unlikely theoretical possibility of parole avoids addressing the circumstances and fairness of Mr. Pollard's incarceration. The fact is that he has been punished enough already.
6. The Government's Breach of the Plea Agreement
You agree in your memorandum that there are "legitimate questions" regarding the government's conduct at the time of sentencing in conjunction with its plea bargain.
However, you selectively omit a full discussion of the issue and the pertinence of it to Mr. Pollard's request for a commutation of his sentence.
The fact is that the government violated its plea bargain with Mr. Pollard in several fundamental respects. Nearly everyone who has examined the circumstances agrees with that conclusion. Indeed, this situation was severely questioned by the federal appellate court that reviewed Mr. Pollard's sentence. Despite the government's agreement in exchange for Mr. Pollard's plea of guilty to temper its rhetoric at the tide of sentencing, not to seek a life sentence, and to point out that Pollard's cooperation with the government had been valuable, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that the government had engaged in "hard-nosed dealings," Pollard v. United States, 939 F.2d 10110, 1030, cert. denied, 113 S. Ct. 322 (1992), and that the government's conduct was "problematic" and "troublesome." Id. at 1026. Dissenting Judge Stephen Williams concluded that the government violated material terms of Mr. Pollard's plea agreement, resulting in a "fundamental miscarriage of justice." Id. at 1032. And the government's forceful, bitter and antagonistic rhetoric produced the very life sentence it had agreed not to seek. Although the courts declined for technical reasons to set aside Mr. Pollard's sentence, there are no such constraints on the President's constitutional power to commute Mr. Pollard's sentence and thereby to redress the injustice of a sentence of life in prison despite the government's promise not to seek such a sentence.
NJCRAC's characterization of the facts is revealing. It says that Pollard's claim of a government breach of the plea bargain is "not entirely a myth". This is a very peculiar choice of words to describe an audacious, deliberate and manifest injustice.
7. The Secretary of Defense's Submission of a Memoranda During the Sentencing Process and Use of the Word "Treason"
Your brief discussion of the memoranda submitted by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger during the sentencing proceedings and your astonishing efforts to rationalize Secretary Weinberger's use of the word "treason" to describe Mr. Pollard's conduct overlooks completely the improper nature and devastating impact that that submission had on Mr. Pollard's case.
The Secretary of Defense was not "obliged to submit a pre-sentencing memorandum." No law or custom requires it. It was an entirely gratuitous and intentionally forceful symbolic act by the nation's highest national security official.
The Secretary of Defense's memoranda did not relay objective facts about possible damage to national security caused by Mr. Pollard. Rather, the Secretary went to extraordinary and unprecedented lengths to volunteer extremely prejudicial and unjustified statements unjustified statements of opinion such as Pollard's "loyalty to Israel transcended his loyalty to the United States," and "the punishment imposed should reflect the perfidy of [his] actions (and) the magnitude of the treason committed," (emphasis added).
Judge Williams found that these statements amounted to a call for a life sentence in "all but name", and constituted a
"flagrant violation of the (plea) agreement's spirit . . . . [T]he repeated use of superlatives implied an appeal for the maximum (sentence). Weinberger's reference to treason took the point further. Whereas treason carries the death penalty, and involves aiding the nation's enemies, Pollard was charged with espionage, carrying a maximum of life imprisonment and encompassing aid even to friendly nations - here, Israel . . . Weinberger's subtext was that the heaviest possible sentence was the lightest that was just."
Mr. Pollard did not commit treason, was not accused of treason and did not plead guilty to treason, and even the Government has now acknowledged that use of that terminology was both unwarranted and "regrettable". In fact, Mr. Pollard pleaded guilty to one count of violating 1a U.S.C. S 794, the transmission of national security information to a foreign government. Mr. Pollard's conviction was not even based upon that portion of # 794 that is predicated on an intent or reason to believe that harm to the United States would result from his conduct.
The Chanes memorandum's explanation that Secretary Weinberger was not using the word "treason" in its "formal and legal sense", is nothing short of outrageous. The Secretary was one of the nation's top officials, filing a formal legal document in the name of the United States under the supervision of the United States Attorney in a formal and extremely serious legal proceeding in a proceeding in a case that he, himself, characterized as very important. The word "treason" was intentionally used, as evidenced by the simultaneous use of the term "traitorously" by the Assistant United States Attorney. The assertion that the Secretary and the Government did not know the meaning of the word "treason" in that context is absurd. It was intended to secure a life sentence for Jonathan Pollard and it worked.
We will not comment an the remainder of the memorandum or the NJCRAC process. Those are matters for NJCRAC and its CJF member agencies. However, we do expect that NJCRAC will feel obliged to disseminate only accurate information concerning the Pollard case in the future.
In sum, your March 23 memorandum does not "provide accurate information" about the Pollard case. Rather, it either inaccurately portrays or omits entirely facts that we believe are vitally important and that would be of great interest to the NJCRAC and CJF member agencies. Your memorandum does not even mention that the government of Israel has specifically requested the President to grant Mr. Pollard's request for commutation. Such omissions seriously call into question the objectivity of your "fact-finding" efforts.
Very truly yours,
signed
Theodore B. Olsen
He set a record for how much data he passed in those 18 months.
And his professionalism or lack thereof is beside the point. He took it upon himself to offer classified material for sale to three foreign governments (the first two thought that he was an FBI plant). He actually sold said classified material to Israel, a foreign power.
He violated his oath to the United States.
Everything else is just arm-waving.
I think the real solution is the release of the letter to the judge, at least to Pollard's attorneys, which was the basis of his sentence, despite the fact that it might cast the use of secret evidence in a poor light.
Then we can all judge whether his sentence was disproportonate.
True.
But as for the other stuff, armwaving and whatnot, I await with some interest what will come out of this. In particular, I'd be interested in hearing what Pollard would say once out of prison.
You don't know how much I agree with you on this. Israel is a foreign state, and we don't own it; we don't owe it, either. The U.S. looks out for #1, too, which is the United States. The U.S. and Israel have many interests in common, but they do diverge at times. The U.S. is looking it for its own interests as well. Pollard served the interests of a foreign country, not the U.S.; hence, he's going to die in his U.S. prison cell.
Not quite. Think Panama, and Noriega.
-archy-/-
He'll continue to say that he was being persecuted, and he'll tell you that all those classified documents that his wife was trying to get rid of after he got arrested were planted by anti-Semitic FBI and NIS agents.
Pollard is no longer a threat to us. Those who are still successfully providing sensitive information to our enemies, whether in the FBI, CIA military or elected offices, most certainly still are.
Lol. You think? I'm sort of wondering if there isn't a more interesting story here than that :).
Charles Manson is no longer a threat to us, either. Why don't you lobby for his release? After all, he didn't actually kill Sharon Tate.
Y'all should be ashamed of yourselves, Americans taking sides against the U.S.
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