(José Niño, Headline USA) U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee hosted convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard for a clandestine meeting at the American embassy in Jerusalem, the New York Times reports.
Pollard confirmed the encounter took place and characterized it as cordial. In the same breath, he denounced Trump as a “madman,” an ironic criticism given that Trump’s Justice Department enabled his relocation to Israel by lifting stringent parole restrictions in 2020.
The gathering, which also included David Milstein, a senior adviser to Huckabee and the stepson of conservative commentator Mark Levin, has raised immediate concerns about diplomatic judgment and security protocols at the highest levels of American representation in Israel, per a report by Information Liberation.
The Justice Department at the time stated that after reviewing Pollard’s case, the U.S. Parole Commission determined no evidence suggested he would violate the law. Within months, he departed for Israel aboard a private aircraft belonging to Jewish Zionist megadonor Sheldon Adelson and received a hero’s reception, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally greeting him on the tarmac.
Israel subsequently granted Pollard citizenship and awarded him a pension typically reserved for former Mossad and Shin Bet operatives. In his inaugural interview with Adelson’s Israel Hayom newspaper, Pollard openly encouraged Jewish Americans in intelligence positions to betray their oaths and spy for Israel.
When asked what advice he would give a young Jewish naval intelligence officer approached by the Mossad, Pollard responded unequivocally: “I’d tell him, not doing anything is unacceptable.”
David Milstein, who participated in the secret Pollard meeting, has emerged as a powerful and controversial figure within the embassy. The Washington Post reported in August that the State Department dismissed its chief press officer for Israeli Palestinian affairs, Shahed Ghoreishi, after disputes with Milstein, who State Department officials describe as confronting staff throughout the department in defense of Israeli government positions.
Critics within the State Department contend Milstein operates far beyond his advisory role. One official told the Post that Milstein, despite being merely an adviser to an ambassador, involves himself in virtually everything. Multiple clashes have erupted over Milstein’s efforts to reshape American diplomatic language, including his push to replace references to the West Bank with the biblical term Judea and Samaria.
The fired official later told Democracy Now that Milstein wielded disproportionate influence at the Jerusalem embassy and would regularly intervene to edit documents, substituting internationally recognized terminology with language preferred by Israeli settlers and annexation advocates.
The fired State Department official posed a pointed question on social media after news of the meeting emerged: “What’s it called when you welcome a traitor into the U.S. embassy?”
The Trump administration defended the ambassador’s actions Thursday.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt acknowledged the administration had no advance knowledge of the meeting but stated the President stands by the ambassador, offering no explanation for why a convicted spy received access to American diplomatic facilities or what business the embassy had conducted with someone who stole classified American secrets.
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino