Reports: 62 MKs now back pardon for reservist charged in Prime Minister’s Office leak scandal

Multiple Hebrew media outlets report that 62 Knesset members have signed onto a public letter to President Isaac Herzog urging him to accept a request for pardon by an IDF reservist charged in the security documents scandal that has roiled the Prime Minister’s Office in recent weeks.

The noncommissioned officer, whose name is barred from publication under a gag order, has been charged together with Eli Feldstein, an aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The NCO is charged with transferring classified information, an offense punishable by up to seven years in prison, theft by an authorized person and obstruction of justice.

His lawyers wrote to Herzog yesterday asking for a pardon, saying he “understood that his acts were forbidden and would not repeat them.”

Yesterday, reports said 50 MKs had backed the request. That number has now apparently grown to over half of the 120 lawmakers.