Trump Administration Secures Release Of Cannabis Prisoner Marc Fogel From 14-Year Russian Sentence

Marc Fogel, who was sentenced to 14 years in a Russian penal colony after his 2021 arrest in Moscow for possessing medical marijuana, is coming home.

The White House announced Tuesday, per various news outlets, that it had negotiated Fogel’s release.

White House national security adviser Michael Waltz said that Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump‘s special envoy to the Middle East, was leaving Russian airspace with Fogel, who was declared “wrongfully detained” by President Joe Biden shortly before he left the White House.

Waltz said Fogel, who previously worked at the U.S. embassy in Moscow and also as an English teacher, would be on U.S. soil by Tuesday night.

“President Trump, Steve Witkoff and the president’s advisors negotiated an exchange that 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,” he said in a statement, cited by CBS News.

In what CNN referred to as an extraordinary move, Witkoff personally went to Russia to bring back Fogel, the statement indicated. There has been no known high-level U.S. travel to Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022.

“By tonight, Marc Fogel will be on American soil and reunited with his family and loved ones thanks to President Trump’s leadership,” Waltz’s statement said.

Fogel’s family said Tuesday they “are beyond grateful, relieved, and overwhelmed that after more than three years of detention” he is coming home.

“Thanks to the unwavering leadership of President Trump, Marc will soon be back on American soil, free where he belongs,” Jane, Ethan and Sam Fogel said in a statement.

Fogel was a legal medical marijuana patient in Pennsylvania where he used cannabis as an alternative to opioids for chronic pain following spinal surgery.

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