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Ruff was in the job last year when the president promised then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the Wye River negotiations to conduct a review of the case.

Defense and intelligence officials, as well as many members of Congress, are strongly opposed to having the president commute Pollard's life sentence because they maintain his activities damaged U.S. national security.

Various public officials and Jewish leaders have urged the president to grant clemency to Pollard for humanitarian reasons, arguing that Pollard's sentence is harsher than those of other spies in similar cases.

Clinton has twice before rejected granting Pollard clemency — in 1993 and in 1996.

A spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington said Kochnovsky's trip was designed as a "fact-finding" mission to introduce him to the issues surrounding the case and does not signal any new Israeli initiative on Pollard's behalf.

White House spokesman Joe Lockhart indicated on Monday that the review has been completed but no recommendation has gone to the president.

"As far as I know, they have checked in all the places they need to check in," he said at his daily briefing. "But no recommendation has gone to the president."

Lockhart added that he did not "expect anything to happen imminently on this" and said he expected the case of Pollard to be handled separate from the peace process.

Lockhart also said First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton has not and is not expected to play a role in the decision.

New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who will likely become Clinton's Republican opponent for the New York Senate seat, has already said that Pollard's life sentence is "way beyond the sentence served by other people that have been convicted of the same offense."