Israel president invites Netanyahu graft trial parties to discuss pardon request

Israel’s president has invited lawyers for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and prosecutors to his residence for talks, his office said Tuesday, as he weighs a pardon request in the premier’s ongoing corruption trials.

Netanyahu faces charges in two cases of allegedly negotiating favorable media coverage from Israeli news outlets, and a third in which he is accused of accepting more than $260,000 in luxury gifts from billionaires in exchange for political favors.

A fourth corruption charge has been dismissed.

President Isaac Herzog “believes that before he exercises his authority in relation to the request submitted concerning the prime minister, every effort should be made to hold discussions between the parties to reach understandings,” his legal adviser Michal Tsuk-Shafir wrote in a letter to the parties.

It was addressed to Netanyahu’s lawyer Amit Haddad, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and state prosecutor Amit Aisman.

Netanyahu, who has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, is Israel’s first sitting prime minister to stand trial for corruption.

He has long denounced the proceedings against him, which began in 2019, as a “political trial.”

Herzog’s office said the talks would constitute “only a preliminary step before the president considers exercising the pardon authority.”

US President Donald Trump raised the matter directly in a speech to the Israeli parliament in October, urging Herzog to pardon him.

He subsequently sent Herzog a letter formally requesting that Netanyahu be pardoned, which was followed shortly after by an official request from Netanyahu’s lawyers.

Netanyahu’s trial resumed two weeks ago after emergency restrictions imposed during the conflict with Iran were lifted.