so last year they re talking, they re still, once again, talking about jonathan pollard got to get him out, using this as part of a bigger negotiation. last year he want up for parole. the parole board said no. this year today the parole board said yes. the obama administration is saying that it is like an inevitable thing about the course of the wheels of justice he would have gotten out today. this is no politics here. not part of any deal. a stand-aloner to. inevitable because of the way the parole board works. doesn t make any sense. the parole board said no last year. that s right. though it is his release date this year. as far as when his sentencing occurred. they could still ask to keep him. it s an extraordinary case. they could come up to the parole board and say we denton t believe he should be released and make a case for keeping him longer. this is really about politics and obama s legacy being able to say i m the president after all of the presidents who said no. i m th
pardon, parole. it has been this incredibly high stakes negotiating flash point for 30 years until today. today they said they will let hem out. recently as 2011 benjamin netanyahu was telling the obama administration they had to let jonathan pollard out he served 25 years. as recently as 2011 vice president joe biden quoted saying at the time that would happen over my dead body. but now jonathan pollard is being let out. how come? what is the u.s. getting for it if at all? how did this happen? joining us now managing editor of msnbc digital. covered the pollard case for years since a correspondent for the ap in jerusalem. great to have you here. thank you, rachel. did i get anything wrong? you got everything exactly right. you know even last year when kerry was making this last-ditch effort again with the israelis and palestinians the pollard case was dangled out there. would obama release him early? of course it didn t happen. that s part of my question.
he was handing over he asked israelis to buy that nice diamond and saphire ring. to propose to his wife. and yes he ended up going to prison too. reporter: prosecutors say pollard gave away more secrets than any other spy in american history. this case represents ape serious and i underscore serious, grave breach of national security secrets of this country. in a three-hour court hearing, pollard said what he had done was wrong he expected to be punished but asked for mercy for his wife ann henderson pollard saying he sacrificed her on an altar of political ideology selling secrets to israel. pollard given life in prison. his wife sobbed as she was sentenced to five years for helping. led to a hoeflding cell she could be heard screaming and pounding the walls.
yasser arafat leaves to get ready for the signing ceremony. marine one gets ready to take the president back to the white house. israeli officials talk about how good a deal it is. this takes israelis and the palestinians closer to achieving peace with security. reporter: suddenly 8:00 a.m. netanyahu takes clinton aside. u.s. officials say for the first time he says he won t sign the deal unless the president first releases israeli spy jonathan pollard. convicted of stealing u.s. military secrets for israel. aide say the president is shocked. he has twice denied clemency for pollard. for six hours they argue. finally clinton says he will review the pollard case. the summit deal is back on. that kind of thing happened again and again and again through every presidential administration since this guy was first arrested while ronald reagan was president. every president since reagan has reviewed this guy s case. has had studies to see if he could be released. the appeals for clemenc
something he had stolen information about. in any case he and his wife worked out this plan where he mentioned the cactus to her. she would know that would be a signal that she should go retrieve from their apartment, a giant suitcase he had stashed there full of classified u.s. intelligence documents. so he gave the signal. he is being questioned by the fbi. let him make a phone call. he says cactus to his wife on the phone. she knows she is to get the suitcase and get rid of it. so the fbi has been tipped off this guy might be doing something fishy at work. start questioning him. he basically confesses a little bit he has been handing over classified information. the fbi lets him tip off his wife to get rid of some of the damning evidence. because he says he was going to lead them to others involved in the plot they let him go. they started questioning him monday of that week. november 1985. they started questioning him monday. on thursday of that week november 21st 1985 he got into