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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...

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. le...

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. ...

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...

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 t...