Israeli President Isaac Herzog is forcefully denying a bombshell Channel 12 report that he once explored a pre-arranged political deal to grant Benjamin Netanyahu a pardon � years before becoming president � in exchange for Netanyahu�s support for his eventual rise to the office.

The report, aired Tuesday night, centers on a confidential 17-page legal opinion drafted in 2019 for a former Herzog associate. The memo � written while Herzog was helming the Jewish Agency and widely seen as the frontrunner for the next presidency � examined whether an Israeli president could issue a pardon to a sitting prime minister before indictment or conviction. Its release comes just days after Netanyahu formally asked Herzog for a pardon in his corruption case without admitting guilt.

Channel 12 suggested the document may have been produced as part of early groundwork for a political bargain between the two men. Herzog�s office blasted that insinuation as �unfounded and outrageous,� dismissing the report as well outside what it called legitimate journalistic boundaries. The president has instructed his attorney to take �appropriate legal action.�

�There was never any agreement, understanding or acknowledgment between President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu linking Herzog�s tenure to Netanyahu�s legal proceedings, neither explicitly nor implicitly,� the president�s office said. �Anyone who claims otherwise is lying and risks legal consequences.�

According to Channel 12, the opinion � authored by prominent attorney Eyal Rozovsky � explores a series of sensitive questions: whether a pre-conviction pardon falls within the Israeli president�s sweeping clemency powers; whether a pardon issued before trial would implicitly admit guilt; and whether such a move could be packaged as part of an agreed political exit for Netanyahu.

The memo allegedly leans heavily on precedent from the Bus 300 affair, in which then-president Chaim Herzog, the current president�s father, pardoned Shin Bet officials before they were convicted. Channel 12 described the legal opinion as using that case as a template for the legality of early pardons.

The network quoted an unnamed source �close to Herzog� at the time suggesting the document was solicited for political rather than legal reasons � a claim Herzog�s office flatly rejects.

Herzog�s office insists that the memo was not commissioned by Herzog but by his former adviser Motti Sander, acting personally in 2019. Sander, they note, was no longer part of Herzog�s circle by the time he launched his presidential campaign. The office added that Herzog only learned of the memo�s existence when it surfaced in the press years later.

�Mr. Sander apparently asked for the legal opinion, having for years tried to push a plea bargain and pardon for Prime Minister Netanyahu,� the president�s office said.

Officials further stressed that Herzog won the presidency in 2021 with a sweeping 87-vote Knesset majority, underscoring that he �did not need the support of Netanyahu or others on his behalf.�

The timing of the Channel 12 report is politically explosive. Netanyahu�s unprecedented request for a presidential pardon � filed last week � is already testing Israel�s institutional boundaries as the prime minister remains on trial.

Herzog�s office reiterated that the pardon request is currently undergoing a multi-week review process within the Justice Ministry and that no decision is imminent.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)