The White House was unaware that the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, held a meeting with Jonathan Pollard, a former American Navy analyst who was jailed for 30 years for spying for Israel, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday.
Mr Huckabee hosted Pollard at the US embassy in Jerusalem in July, The New York Times reported. The meeting was kept off the ambassador's official schedule and surprised American officials, the report added.
Ms Leavitt said that, while US President Donald Trump's administration was unaware of the encounter, the President "stands by our ambassador ... and all that he is doing for the United States and Israel".
Pollard was convicted in 1987 and sentenced to life in prison – the harshest punishment ever handed down for spying for an ally – after passing highly classified US material to Israel. He served 30 years of his sentence and was released on parole in 2015, before moving to Israel in 2020. The case stressed relations between the two countries.
Many in the US intelligence community still view his case as one of the most damaging breaches of classified information in American history, while some in Israel regard him as a hero.
The meeting “alarmed” the CIA and marked a break from the long-standing practice of US officials avoiding contact with convicted spies, The New York Times reported. It was unclear whether Mr Huckabee sought approval for the meeting from the Trump administration, raising concerns that the talks could signal a softer US stance on espionage by allies.
Mr Huckabee advocated Pollard's release from prison while campaigning to become the Republican Party's presidential nominee in 2011. The ambassador, a staunch supporter of Israel and political ally of Mr Trump, has cultivated close ties with Israeli leaders as the administration deepens diplomatic and security co-operation.
The ambassador has also sought to strengthen ties with Israel’s right wing, with which Pollard is aligned, The New York Times added.
Pollard had long expressed interest in moving to Israel, which granted him citizenship in 1995 while he was still in prison. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Pollard and his wife at the airport when they arrived in the country in 2020. He received his new documentation and a traditional Jewish blessing.
In an interview with Israeli media, Pollard said the meeting with Mr Huckabee took place at his request. “I had originally requested the interview for a very personal reason,” he said to i24News. “I wanted to express my sincere appreciation for all the efforts that he had expended on my behalf when I was in prison.”
He suggested news of the meeting had been leaked to discredit the ambassador. “If I could guess, I would say it’s that [the US intelligence] community, particularly the CIA station in the embassy, that probably was the one that initiated this whole effort to discredit the ambassador,” he added.
While defending the ambassador, Pollard said he "despises" other figures in the Trump administration, particularly senior aides Jared Kushner, Mr Trump's son-in-law, and Steve Witkoff. Both men have been at the forefront of negotiations between Israel and Hamas.
“For people like that to carry on with terrorists who murdered our people and who have organised efforts to discredit Israel, I find abhorrent,” Pollard said, referring to the Hamas-led attack on Israel in 2023 that sparked the war on Gaza. “They did everything in their power to prevent us from winning in Gaza."
Mr Witkoff and Mr Kushner have been handling the peace plan in the enclave that led to a ceasefire taking effect in October, after more than two years of a devastating war that has killed more than 69,400 Palestinians.
