MAGA supporters are furious with Mike Huckabee, Trump’s envoy to Israel, after he admitted hosting a secret meeting in Jerusalem with a convicted spy jailed for selling American state secrets to the Israelis.
The ambassador shocked officials when he confirmed meeting with notorious spy Jonathan Pollard at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem back in July, breaking with decades of diplomatic tradition.
White House officials were reportedly not told about the meeting in advance, and panicked when they heard it had taken place, The New York Times reports. Pollard, 71, was jailed for 30 years in 1987 for handing over classified documents to Israel in what was one of the most notorious espionage cases of the Cold War.
The meeting sent shockwaves through MAGA circles. “There is no universe where it’s appropriate for Mike Huckabee, who is supposed to be OUR AMBASSADOR and serve our country’s interest, is meeting with Jonathan Pollard, who to this day encourages spying on the U.S.,” wrote MAGA influencer Mike Cernovich, who called for an investigation into the meeting.
“Immediately Recall Ambassador Huckabee, He is Out of Control,” wrote former White House Chief Strategist and MAGA hardliner Steve Bannon.
Tucker Carlson, meanwhile, condemned the incident as “shocking behavior from a United States ambassador. Is Huckabee going to explain this?”
Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, told Axios that nothing had been requested or granted in the meeting. A previous statement to The Times also castigated their reporting for being “filled with inaccuracies.”
It is not clear why Huckabee sought out Pollard in the first place, who moved to Jerusalem in 2020 after an intense lobbying campaign from Israeli politicians saw him released early from prison in 2015. Huckabee had also called for Pollard’s freedom when he ran as a Republican presidential candidate in 2011.
When asked about the meeting by the NYT, Pollard said the experience was “friendly.” The former spy said “a lot of things came up in conversation” with the ambassador, but declined to elaborate on the details.
Pollard also attacked Trump during the interview, calling him a “madman who has literally sold us down the drain, for Saudi gold.”
Anger at Huckabee’s meeting was not solely confined to the GOP. Democrats called out the ambassador for his unprofessional conduct.
“Jonathan Pollard is a convicted traitor who provided highly sensitive national security information to the Israeli government,” Democratic Rep Joaquin Castro wrote on X. “He did grave harm to our country. He has never shown a degree of remorse for his crimes.
“It’s unacceptable that Ambassador Huckabee secretly met with Mr. Pollard, a convicted traitor, at the United States Embassy.”
Huckabee’s meeting with Pollard reportedly alarmed officials at the CIA, according to sources at The Times. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also confirmed the administration did not sanction the meeting, but that “the president stands by our ambassador.”
Speaking to the Jerusalem Post in August, Pollard said his loyalty was to “the land of Israel and the people of Israel, without exception.”
“Just as certain members of the Trump administration profess an ‘America first’ doctrine, I wholeheartedly embrace an ‘Israel first’ doctrine,” he added. “And I went to jail for that for 30 years.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and Huckabee’s office for further comment.
The post MAGA Melts Down at Trump Ambassador Over Bombshell Spy Meeting appeared first on The Daily Beast.
