In a display of bipartisanship, Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY) and Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) have penned a letter to be sent to President Barack Obama requesting clemency for Jonathan Pollard. Pollard is currently serving his 26th year of a life sentence for passing classified information to Israel.

The letter, to be released later this evening, was initially prepared to coincide with Israel’s President Shimon Peres’s visit to Obama. The letter is currently circling in the U.S. Congress as it collects signatures from the other Congressmen.

Below is the text of the letter, obtained by TLS.

The President
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

We write to urge you to exercise your power of clemency and commute Jonathan Pollard’s prison sentence to time served.

What Mr. Pollard did was wrong. He broke the law and deserved to be punished for his crime. Mr. Pollard has now served more than 25 years in prison, many of which in solitary confinement, for his actions. There is no doubt that he has paid a heavy price, and, from the standpoint of either punishment or deterrence, we believe he has been imprisoned long enough.

Mr. Pollard has expressed remorse for his actions, and his health is reportedly declining – he has recently been hospitalized for kidney and gallstone problems. It is also clear that Mr. Pollard has served a disproportionately severe sentence. A number of people convicted of spying for other countries, ranging from the former Soviet Union to South Korea, have been given lighter sentences than Mr. Pollard. We would not expect that Mr. Pollard would be treated any better than anyone else who has committed similar acts, but we certainly do not believe he should be treated any worse.

For all of these reasons we join our voices to those who see clemency as an act of compassion justified on humanitarian grounds and for purposes of fairness and equity. We, therefore, again urge you to grant clemency to Jonathan Pollard so that he can be released for time served.

Thank you.