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 clemency, 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.
so he asked several times to be excused to go make those calls to his wife. one of the legendary things in each of the calls he found a way to bring the conversation around to the topping of cactuses. he told his wife, go see our friends and give them our cactus. note to self. if you ever need a code word, pick something you may reasonably talk about on the phone and not cactus. more like a safe word, less like a code word if you know what i mean. in this guy s case, he had worked out this code word, with his wife in advance. the word cactus, may or may not have been an acronym for a secret weapons system or 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
of course it didn t happen. that s part of my question. 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 don 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 p
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 don 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 the president who is not going to block this. i will be the president on whose watch jonathan pollard will be released. really ironic and for the administration too after the crazy and very difficult and very upsett
could be released. the appeals for clemency, 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?