Clutching a can of Iron City beer with an American flag draped around his neck, Marc Fogel met President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday night, telling him he will forever be indebted to him.

“President Trump is a hero,” the teacher from Oakmont said during his first public comments after being freed from Russian captivity for the last three-and-a-half years.

Fogel arrived at the White House about an hour after a private jet that carried him from Moscow to Washington, D.C., touched down at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday.

The two men stood outside shaking hands and chatting, Fogel with a huge smile on his face.

“I feel like the luckiest man on earth right now,” he said just before meeting members of Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation.

Fogel called the president and the men in the diplomatic service that brought him home heroes.

“I am in awe of what they all did,” Fogel said.

Just a day earlier, Fogel was imprisoned in Russia — unsure if he would ever again see his wife and sons and 95-year-old mother.

One day and thousands of miles later, he was free.

“I think God listened to us,” said his mother, Malphine, on Tuesday evening, as she thanked everyone who helped to free her son. “I think they bombarded the heavens with prayers.”

Imprisoned in Russia since August 2021 for possession of medical marijuana, Fogel, 63, was released Tuesday, announced National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.

“Today, President Donald J. Trump and his Special Envoy Steve Witkoff are able to announce that Mr. Witkoff is leaving Russian airspace with Marc Fogel, an American who was detained by Russia,” Waltz said in a prepared statement. “President Trump, Steve Witkoff and the president’s advisers 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.”

MARC FOGEL IS BACK!!! ????????

PROMISES MADE, PROMISES KEPT!!! ???????? pic.twitter.com/ZMceoU0OfA

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 12, 2025

Malphine Fogel, speaking to TribLive from her Butler Township home Tuesday afternoon, said her son called from an airport in Moscow.

“He said, ‘I’m waiting to get on a plane to Washington D.C.,’ ” she said. “I was totally blown away. He said, ‘I’m coming home.’

“He was very happy.”

And so was she.

The hard work of the last three-and-a-half years — the letter writing, lobbying politicians, consulting attorneys and even holding art exhibits to raise awareness of Fogel’s plight — had finally paid off.

“I really wondered if I’d get to see him again, and I think he did, too,” Malphine Fogel said. “I just want to see him. I just want to touch him.”

As Fogel spoke with Trump late Tuesday, he spoke about his mom who, for the entirety of his time in prison, has lobbied for his release.

“My family has been a force,” Fogel said. “I think my 95-year-old mother is probably the most dynamic 95-year-old on Earth right now.”

Fogel’s eldest sister, Lisa Hyland, of O’Hara, said earlier Tuesday there were inklings of a possible release a few days ago, but she tried not to get her hopes up too high.

“These things can fall apart at any time,” she said. “I haven’t slept much for the last few days.”

It was only after her brother called that she allowed herself to get excited.

Hyland said that Fogel’s wife and sons were going to meet him in D.C. Then, she continued, her brother is expected to be taken to an Army hospital in Texas for evaluation.

Although Fogel deflected a question from the media about the conditions of his confinement — saying he needed time to process it — he did say that he’d spent 100 days in Russian hospitals, and during that time, received 400 injections — of what he didn’t know.

Ever the history teacher, even in his first few minutes speaking to the media, Fogel quoted Winston Churchill’s famous wartime speech in which Churchill said “Never was so much owed by so many to so few.’”

Citing his own circumstance, Fogel said of himself, “Never has one owed so much to so many.”

It was love that sustained him during his imprisonment, he said.

“And knowing I had the support of my fellow Pennsylvanians, my family, my friends,” he said. “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.

“And I will forever be indebted to President Trump.”

Malphine Fogel said she heard from her son — Marc Fogel — via phone call last night.

He was calling from the Moscow airport instead of prison to let his mom know the good news: he’s coming home @TribLIVE pic.twitter.com/WdBCMqwDRD

— Megan Swift (@mgswift7) February 11, 2025

A critical phone call

Fogel, who taught history at the now-shuttered Anglo-American School in Moscow, was arrested Aug. 14, 2021, at Sheremetyevo International Airport outside Moscow.

He was found in possession of about 17 grams of medical marijuana prescribed to treat chronic pain from a debilitating spinal condition he’d had for more than three decades. Although that small quantity of drugs would likely result in probation for a Russian citizen, Fogel was charged with drug smuggling and drug possession.

He was convicted after what his supporters called a sham trial and ordered to serve 14 years in a maximum security penal colony.

During two separate interviews with TribLive, Fogel described difficult living conditions. He was hospitalized at least four times.

Sasha Phillips, an attorney who has been working with the Fogel family for more than three years, said she got a call from local counsel in Russia around 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday telling her that Fogel had been moved to Moscow.

There was a plane, the attorney told her.

“They were watching with great hope and anxiety,” Phillips said.

“‘It looks like good news,’” the attorney relayed.

Although there was hope, Phillips said, it was met with caution.

“Hearing that news, all of the grief and frustrations from when Marc was overlooked and forgotten, all of that emotion just came out.”

‘Bottomless pit’

Related coverage

• 50 artists collaborate to create awareness for Oakmont teacher Marc Fogel as President Trump takes over (Jan. 19, 2025) • Editorial: Marc Fogel’s wrongful detention designation is just the start (Dec. 28, 2024) • Distraught Marc Fogel speaks from Russian prison after being left out of prisoner swap deal (Aug. 4, 2024) • Editorial: U.S. government didn’t do enough to bring home Marc Fogel (Aug. 2, 2024) • From the Newsroom podcast: TribLive unpacks the exclusive interview with Marc Fogel (May 30, 2024)

Malphine Fogel spoke to Trump about her son during a campaign stop in Butler on July 13. She told him to remember Fogel’s name.

“He repeated it,” she said of Trump. “He said, ‘If I get in, I’ll get him out.’”

On Tuesday, as he spoke with Fogel, Trump recalled his meeting with Malphine.

“She made quite an impression,” Trump said. “It’s great to have you back.”

Later adding, “I had to get him back home because I would have been in big trouble with his mother.”

Trump would not say if he spoke directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin and would not say what the terms of Fogel’s release were, other than to say they were “very fair.”

“I very much appreciate what they did in letting Marc go,” Trump said.

Fogel then added that “President Putin was very generous and statesmanlike in granting me a pardon.”

Trump told the media that Fogel could play an important role in helping to end the war in Ukraine.

Fogel and his family thought that he might be part of a multinational deal on Aug. 1 that included 24 prisoners from not just the United States and Russia, but Germany, Norway, Belarus, Slovenia and Turkey.

But he was not.

The news that day, Malphine Fogel said, was “crushing.”

America released four criminals, Germany gave up a notorious hit man, and Russia freed a number of its own dissidents, as well as Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Marine veteran Paul Whelan, Radio Free Europe journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and Washington Post columnist Vladimir Kara-Murza.

Fogel also was bypassed by the American government when, on Dec. 8, 2022, it swapped Viktor Bout, a notorious Russian arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death,” for WNBA star Brittney Griner. Griner had been arrested on Feb. 17, 2022, at Sheremetyevo airport after being found in possession of vape cartridges that contained hashish oil.

“It’s like I’m in a bottomless pit and it keeps getting worse,” Fogel said in a phone call with family and friends in August after being left behind. “It’s just incomprehensible to me.

“I lay awake all night, and my head just runs and runs and runs. The anger and the frustration.”

The Fogel family long fought to have him declared “wrongfully detained,” even filing a federal lawsuit in June against the State Department and then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken alleging the government was treating Fogel differently than others who had been held in Russia and released.

In late October, Fogel finally received the wrongfully detained designation that was set by the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act of 2020.

The title brings with it significant resources for Fogel and his family, including medical care and mental health services for the American prisoner and financial support upon their return. It also provides funding for two family members to travel to Washington, D.C., to advocate for their loved one.

“Marc Fogel spent 1,255 days locked away in a Russian penal colony,” U.S. Rep. Guy Reschenthaler said Tuesday in a statement. “Today is a day of celebration, thankfulness and gratitude knowing our fellow Pennsylvanian will soon be back on American soil with his family.”

Added, U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Butler: “Today is a great day for the Fogel family, who will be reunited in Western Pennsylvania once again.”

Malphine Fogel said she believed that Trump was instrumental in obtaining her son’s release.

“I’m thankful.”

Bipartisan issue

Benjamin Gray, the executive director of the Foley Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for American hostages or those being wrongfully detained abroad, said when a person is finally released, they can face a variety of medical and mental health challenges.

“Being singled out and having that outsize mistreatment has a lasting effect,” Gray said.

Because of that, he said, those released are taken to a U.S. Army hospital in San Antonio, Texas, for “post-isolation support activity.”

Normally, Gray said, the person remains there for one to two weeks, spending time decompressing, to “reframe in their mind what happened to them.”

That time includes a full medical workup, as well as counseling for the person and their loved ones, Gray said.

It allows them to be conscious of what they need from each other moving forward, he continued.

Gray said it’s impossible to know what was happening behind the scenes during the Biden or Trump administrations to get Fogel home.

“Most cases like this do take years for resolution,” he said.

Gray applauded the Biden administration for designating Fogel as wrongfully detained and the Trump administration for bringing him home.

“This is one of the few issues in D.C. that’s bipartisan,” he said. “Everyone wants to get Americans being held wrongfully abroad home.

“This is really an American issue. It’s not the purview of one party or another.”

When he learned about Fogel’s release, Gray said his organization shared in the family’s joy.

“Every time there’s an American being held unjustly captive, it’s a small miracle they’ve been released,” Gray said.

But, he continued, that’s tempered by knowing there are 33 other Americans being held hostage or wrongfully detained around the world, including at least four in Russia.

“There’s a lot more work to do.”

Marc Fogel timeline

Aug. 14, 2021: Marc Fogel is arrested at Sheremetyevo International Airport outside Moscow. Fogel is in possession of about 17 grams of medical marijuana prescribed to treat chronic pain from a debilitating spinal condition he has had for more than three decades. Fogel is charged with drug smuggling and drug possession.

Feb. 17, 2022: WNBA star Brittney Griner is arrested at Sheremetyevo airport. She is found in possession of vape cartridges that contain hashish oil.

June 2022: Fogel is sentenced to 14 years in prison by the Russian government. The sentence comes after several hearings in a regional court between April and June. Fogel pleaded guilty to both counts against him.

Dec. 8, 2022: Griner is released from Russian prison after the United States and Russia agree to a prisoner swap. In exchange for Russia freeing Griner, the U.S. agrees to release Viktor Bout, a notorious arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death.”

March 29, 2023: Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich is detained in Russia, accused of espionage, while performing his job as a journalist. He remains jailed but declared by the U.S. government as wrongfully detained.

June 27, 2023: A bipartisan group of Pennsylvania congressmen introduce the Marc Fogel Act. The legislation would require the State Department to be more transparent when it comes to requests to designate Americans imprisoned overseas as wrongfully detained. To this day, Fogel has yet to be declared wrongfully detained.

July 13, 2024: Fogel’s mother, Malphine, meets with then-presidential candidate Donald Trump at his first Butler County rally to implore his aid in bringing her son home. “He took my arm, and I told him (about Marc), and he said, ‘If I get in, I’ll get him out,’” Malphine said. “I said, ‘Just don’t forget his name.’ And he said, ‘I won’t forget. Marc Fogel.’” Just 30 minutes later, gunshots rang out and Trump was wounded and one spectator was killed, as was the shooter.

Aug. 1, 2024: A multinational deal saw 24 prisoners shuffled, with Russia freeing Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Marine veteran Paul Whelan, Radio Free Europe journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and Washington Post columnist Vladimir Kara-Murza. The deal involved the United States, Russia, Germany, Norway, Belarus, Slovenia and Turkey. America released four criminals. Fogel called it “incomprehensible” that he wasn’t included in the deal.

Feb. 11, 2025: The White House announces Fogel’s release after spending 1,255 days in a Russian prison.

Community engagement editor Lori Falce and staff writer Megan Swift contributed to this story.