The Biden administration slow-walked its designation of American Marc Fogel as a “wrongful detainee” in Russia, Republicans and officials who previously worked on the effort to free Fogel told Fox News Digital.
“Marc Fogel was viewed by the Biden administration as just an average White guy from flyover country in Western Pennsylvania,” House Chief Deputy Whip Guy Reschenthaler, R-Pa., told Fox News Digital Tuesday. “He didn’t have any celebrity status; he wasn’t a military veteran; he wasn’t a journalist. So, the Biden administration overlooked him, and I think that’s absolutely appalling.”
FREED AMERICAN HOSTAGE MARC FOGEL LANDS IN US AFTER YEARS IN RUSSIAN CAPTIVITY
Fogel, an American teacher from Western Pennsylvania, returned to the United States late Tuesday, after President Donald Trump secured his release.
Fogel had been arrested at an airport in Russia in 2021 for possession of medical marijuana and was sentenced to 14 years in a Russian prison.
President Donald Trump welcomes Marc Fogel back to the United Stated after being released from Russian custody, on Feb. 11, 2025. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
The Biden administration did not designate Fogel a wrongful detainee until October 2024 and did not make that designation public until December 2024 – weeks after Trump was elected and the month before his inauguration.
Reschenthaler was first notified in 2021 of Fogel’s detention and began leading efforts with congressional colleagues to work with the Biden administration to bring Fogel home.
Along with a group of bipartisan lawmakers from Pennsylvania – including Reps. Brendan F. Boyle, Mike Doyle, Dwight Evans, Fred Keller, Mike Kelly, Conor Lamb, Dan Meuser, Glenn “GT” Thompson, Susan Wild, and Sen. Pat Toomey — Reschenthaler penned an August 2022 letter to then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging him to classify Fogel as having been “wrongfully detained.”
MOTHER OF FREED AMERICAN HOSTAGE MARC FOGEL THANKS PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: ‘HE KEPT HIS PROMISE’
Ellen Keelan, center, and other family members rally outside the White House in July 2023 for the release of Marc Fogel, who had been detained in Russia since August 2021. (Stephanie Scarbrough, The Associated Press)
The lawmakers argued that Fogel’s case was similar to that of WNBA player Brittney Griner, who had been imprisoned for a drug offense in Russia in February 2022. Griner, however, quickly was designated as being wrongfully detained and was returned home in December 2022.
Reschenthaler told Fox News Digital he spoke to Blinken “multiple times” about Fogel but said the secretary of state “refused to give me or my colleagues any kind of explanation for why (Fogel) was not put on wrongfully detained status.”
When determining whether an American is wrongfully detained, the individual’s case is measured against criteria established by the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act. There were 11 criteria established by that law, and lawmakers said Fogel had met at least six of the criteria.
Marc Fogel, a Pennsylvania history teacher who was working at the Anglo-American School in Moscow, returns to U.S. soil on Feb. 11, 2025. (The White House via X)
But the secretary of state has discretion over designations.
“There are a lot of things that President Trump brings to the table that secured the release of Fogel,” Reschenthaler told Fox News Digital. “For one, the Biden administration knew that Marc Fogel was going to be put on wrongfully detained status under Trump – and they didn’t want to give him the win, so they went ahead and did it on their way out the door.”
But Reschenthaler said Trump “has a lot more gravitas in talking to foreign leaders and adversaries.”
“Because when President Trump talks – when he makes a threat or draws a red line – he will actually deliver on that promise,” Reschenthaler said. “Biden would not make bold assertions, and there was nothing to back them off. The Russians did not take Biden or Tony Blinken seriously – and there was nothing to compel them to release Fogel.”
A former Biden administration official pushed back and defended Biden and Blinken’s work.
Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Pa., penned an August 2022 letter to then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken, pictured here, urging him to classify Marc Fogel as having been “wrongfully detained.” (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
“Whether someone is designated or not doesn’t change our level of advocacy, which is how we brought home over 70 people who’d been detained abroad,” the former official told Fox News Digital. “We fought day after day to secure Marc’s release and we celebrate…
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