Marc Fogel, an American teacher detained in Russia for more than three years, tearfully celebrated his freedom alongside President Donald Trump Tuesday night upon returning to the U.S.
Fogel, who was arrested at a Russian airport for medical marijuana possession in 2021, landed at Joint Base Andrews outside of Washington, D.C. and met with Trump at the White House to celebrate his release. With an American flag draped around him, the freed schoolteacher said he will be forever “indebted” to the Trump administration and American lawmakers for successfully freeing him from Russian detainment.
“I feel like the luckiest man on Earth right now and, I want you to know that I am not a hero in this at all,” Fogel said in the Diplomatic Reception Room. “And President Trump is a hero. These men who came from the diplomatic service are heroes. The senators and representatives that passed legislation in my honor to get me home are the heroes. I am in awe of what they all did. My family had been a force, I think my 95-year-old mother is probably the most dynamic 95-year-old on Earth right now. And I am so indebted to so many people.”
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Trump told reporters that Fogel’s release was a “show of good faith” from the Russian government and confirmed that an unspecified Russian currently being held in the U.S. will return to Russia on Wednesday. The president further said that Putin did not receive much in return for Fogel’s freedom.
“We were treated very nicely by Russia,” Trump said. “Actually, I hope that’s the beginning of a relationship where we can end that war and millions of people can stop being killed.”
Following his 2021 arrest, Fogel was charged with carrying 17 grams of medical marijuana to relieve his back pain and was sentenced to 14 years in prison. He said at the White House that he was given over 400 “injections” while being forcefully kept in a hospital in Russia.
“The love that I was given sustained me for three-and-a-half years in a prison that had me in hospitals for more than 100 days,” Fogel continued. “I was given more than 400 injections in that time and knowing I had the support of my fellow Pennsylvanians, my family, my friends, it was so overwhelming that it brought me to my knees and it brought me to tears. But it was my energy, it was my being that kept me going that whole time.”
Fogel’s mother, Malphine, criticized former President Joe Biden’s administration for the delay in getting her son released and filed a lawsuit against the Biden State Department last June, which later got dismissed, according to CBS News. She planned to speak at Trump’s July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, which got put to a sudden end when a would-be assassin shot the now-president in the ear.
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