Updated February 11, 2025 at 22:40 PM ET
President Trump met with Marc Fogel at the White House Tuesday night, after making a deal with Russia to release Fogel from one of its jails. He was a teacher in Russia and was arrested in August 2021 after customs agents found medical marijuana in his luggage.
Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff flew to Russia to bring Fogel home.
After landing in the U.S., Fogel, 63, met with Trump and his administration wearing an American flag draped around his neck. He told the president, "I'm in total awe, and my thanks is for you and your administration, and these amazing people that have brought me home, and I just will spend the rest of my life indebted to you ... I'm so excited."
Fogel's sister, Anne Fogel, told NPR, "We are absolutely in celebration, major relief mode."
Their mother, Malphine Fogel, 95, who lives in Pennsylvania, kept raising the case — including directly with President Trump while he was on the campaign trail.
"My mother spoke to President Trump shortly before he was shot in Butler," Anne Fogel said, referring to the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. "And he told her then that he would get my brother out, and and I give him great credit. He was true to his word."
Trump said, "We just wanted to get him back home. I had to get him back home because I would have big trouble with his mother."
Fogel said while incarcerated in Russia, he was in the hospital for more than 100 days and given more than 400 injections. When asked about the conditions of the Russian jail, Fogel said he would need some time to process his experience.
Fogel had been passed over during previous prisoner swaps with Russia. It was only last year that the State Department decided that he was being "unjustly detained" — a designation that gave more urgency to his case. There were no immediate details about what the U.S. gave to Russia to secure Fogel's release.
Waltz called Fogel's release a sign of good faith from Moscow — and, without explaining it, connected this to diplomacy on Ukraine, calling the deal "a sign we are moving in the right direction to end the brutal and terrible war in Ukraine."
Trump did not confirm or deny whether he spoke directly to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but said the terms of the deal were "very fair" and "very reasonable." Fogel said Putin was "very generous and statesmanlike in granting me a pardon."
The Fogel family released a statement thanking President Trump for securing his release, saying, "We are beyond grateful, relieved and overwhelmed that after more than three years of detention, our father, husband and son, Marc Fogel, is finally coming home."
State Department Secretary Marco Rubio said there are many more Americans detained in Russia, and that Trump is committed to getting them out.
NPR's Ayana Archie contributed to this report.
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