From Wikipedia: Four former directors of Naval Intelligence — William Studeman, Sumner Shapiro, John L. Butts, and Thomas Brooks — issued a public response to the call for clemency, and what they termed “the myths that have arisen from this clever public relations campaign … aimed at transforming Pollard from greedy, arrogant betrayer of the American national trust into Pollard, committed Israeli patriot”:[148][149]
Pollard pleaded guilty and therefore never was publicly tried. Thus, the American people never came to know that he offered classified information to three other countries before working for the Israelis and that he offered his services to a fourth country while he was spying for Israel. They also never came to understand that he was being highly paid for his services …
Pollard and his apologists argue he turned over to the Israelis information they were being denied that was critical to their security. The fact is, however, Pollard had no way of knowing what the Israeli government was already receiving by way of official intelligence exchange agreements … Some of the data he compromised had nothing to do with Israeli security or even with the Middle East. He betrayed worldwide intelligence data, including sources and methods developed at significant cost to the U.S. taxpayer. As a result of his perfidy, some of those sources are lost forever.
… Another claim Pollard made is that the U.S. government reneged on its bargain not to seek the life sentence. What is not heard is that Pollard’s part of the bargain was to cooperate fully in an assessment of the damage he had done and to refrain from talking to the press prior to the completion of his sentencing. He blatantly and contemptuously failed to live up to either part of the plea agreement … It was this coupled with the magnitude and consequences of his criminal actions that resulted in the judge imposing a life sentence … The appellate court subsequently upheld the life sentence.
If, as Pollard and his supporters claim, he has “suffered enough” for his crimes, he is free to apply for parole as the American judicial system provides. In his arrogance, he has refused to do so, but insists on being granted clemency or a pardon.
Admiral Shapiro stated that he was troubled by the support of Jewish organizations for Pollard: “We work so hard to establish ourselves and to get where we are, and to have somebody screw it up … and then to have Jewish organizations line up behind this guy and try to make him out a hero of the Jewish people, it bothers the hell out of me.”[20]
Ron Olive, retired Naval Criminal Investigative Service, led the Pollard investigation. In his 2006 book, Capturing Jonathan Pollard – How One of the Most Notorious Spies in American History Was Brought to Justice, Olive wrote that Pollard did not serve Israel solely, but admitted passing secrets to South Africa, and to his financial advisers, and to shopping his access to Pakistan and other countries.[150]
New Republic editor Martin Peretz has argued against freeing Pollard: “Jonathan Pollard is not a Jewish martyr. He is a convicted espionage agent who spied on his country for both Israel and Pakistan (!) — a spy, moreover, who got paid for his work. His professional career, then, reeks of infamy and is suffused with depravity.” Peretz called Pollard’s supporters “professional victims, mostly brutal themselves, who originate in the ultra-nationalist and religious right. They are insatiable. And they want America to be Israel’s patsy.”[151]
Former FBI and U.S. Navy lawyer M.E. “Spike” Bowman, a top legal adviser to navy intelligence at the time of Pollard’s arrest, who had intimate knowledge of the Pollard case, issued a detailed critique of the case for clemency in 2011. “Because the case never went to trial, it is difficult for outside observers to understand the potential impact and complexity of the Pollard betrayal,” he wrote. “There is no doubt that Pollard was devoted to Israel. However, the extent of the theft and the damage was far broader and more complex than evidenced by the single charge and sentence.”[152] In his estimation Pollard “was neither a U.S. nor an Israeli patriot. He was a self-serving, gluttonous character seeking financial reward and personal gratification.”[152]
In September 2011, according to one report, Vice President Joe Biden told a group of rabbis, “President Obama was considering clemency, but I told him, ‘Over my dead body are we going to let him out before his time. If it were up to me, he would stay in jail for life’.”[153] Biden later denied having used those words, but acknowledged that the report characterized his position accurately.[154]
