(NewsNation) — The Trump administration announced Tuesday it had secured the release of American Marc Fogel, who had been detained by Russia.
President Donald Trump greeted Fogel at the White House on Tuesday night. As snow fell, the president led him inside and the pair addressed the media for the first time since his return to America.
Fogel thanked Trump and members of his administration for his safe return, adding that the “superorganism of people” supporting him helped him sustain for more than three years in Russian prison.
“I think my 95-year-old mother is probably the most dynamic 95-year-old on Earth right now,” Fogel said. “And I am so indebted to so many people.”
Trump said someone else is being released “that you would know of,” though he did not specify. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters an unidentified Russian citizen would be leaving the U.S. as part of the deal, but said the person would not be identified until they reach Russia.
Special envoy Steve Witkoff was involved in negotiating an exchange that would bring Fogel back to the U.S.
“President Trump makes people like Marc Fogel a priority. They’re ordinary Americans but they’re as important to him as anybody else out there,” Witkoff said in an interview with NewsNation’s “Morning in America” on Wednesday.
“(Trump) directs us to go out. Nobody gets left behind — that’s the military thing — well he employs the same sort of concept as it affects people like Marc Fogel.”
Witkoff added: “I think you’ll see other people coming home.”
National Security Adviser Mike Waltz said in a statement the exchange “serves as a show of good faith from the Russians and a sign we are moving in the right direction to end the brutal and terrible war in Ukraine.”
Fogel, a teacher, was arrested for bringing medical marijuana into the country in 2021 and sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2022.
The U.S. government did not initially label Fogel as unlawfully detained, despite doing so in a similar case involving WNBA star Brittney Griner.
Griner was released in a prisoner swap in 2022, and Fogel’s family called on her to advocate for his release from the penal colony where he was serving his sentence.
In 2024, the Biden administration negotiated the release of several Americans, including journalists Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan.
Fogel’s name was reportedly brought up in those negotiations, but he was not included in the deal.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told NewsNation that Russia asked for nothing in exchange for Fogel, while Trump said on Tuesday that the terms of his release were “fair.”
On Wednesday, a Trump administration official confirmed to NewsNation that the United States is releasing Alexander Vinnik as part of the exchange.
Vinnik, a Russian national who used to operate BTC-e, one of the world’s largest virtual currency exchanges until it was shut down in 2017, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering last year.
According to the Department of Justice, despite doing “substantial business” in the United States, BTC-e was not registered as a money services business in America, as required by federal law, nor did it have anti-money laundering or “know-your-customer” policies in place.
“BTC-e relied on shell companies and affiliate entities that were similarly unregistered with FinCEN and lacked basic anti-money laundering and KYC policies to electronically transfer fiat currency in and out of BTC-e,” DOJ said. “Vinnik set up numerous such shell companies and financial accounts across the globe to allow BTC-e to conduct its business.”