In September 2011, according to one report, Vice President Joe Biden - who was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time of Pollard's arrest - told a group of rabbis, "President Obama was considering clemency, but I told him, 'Over my dead body are we going to let him out before his time. If it were up to me, he would stay in jail for life'." Biden later denied having used those precise words, but acknowledged that the report characterized his position accurately.