White House will work ‘every single day’ to free US teacher from Russian prison

Deputy US national security adviser Jonathan Finer said Sunday that the White House worked hard to get Pennsylvania schoolteacher Marc Fogel included in the recent landmark prisoner swap involving Russia and western American allies – and though those efforts were unsuccessful, government officials continue doing “what they can” to bring him home as soon as possible.

Appearing on CBS News’s Face The Nation, Finer declined to provide further details about Fogel’s case and what his return to the US may entail. But he did assure the US is doing “novel things” to ensure US nationals will not be detained in Russia – like Fogel – or elsewhere in the future.

“Predictions about future events like this is not a business I want to be in,” Finer said to Face the Nation correspondent Ed O’Keefe. “But we think about Marc Fogel every single day – and not only think about him. We work on his case every single day.”

Fogel, 63, was convicted of smuggling 17 grams of marijuana into Russia in 2021 and sentenced to 14 years in prison. The Pittsburgh-area native had worked as a teacher at the Anglo-American School of Moscow since 2012 and taught overseas in countries like Oman and Malaysia.

He has reportedly been teaching English to fellow Russian prisoners while he serves his sentence and waits to see if the US can help secure his freedom before the completion of his term.

Fogel’s name reportedly had been included in initial discussions about the prisoner swap completed Thursday. But he was not released alongside US journalists Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva as well as retired US marine Paul Whelan.

Fogel was among as many as 20 US citizens who were left out of the complex, multi-national prisoner swap deal. His family members have said that they are clinging on to hope that the US will continue petitioning for his release.

“It’s just been devastating,” the teacher’s mother, Malphine Fogel, told CBS from her home in Butler Township, Pennsylvania.

She said it was “gut-wrenching” to realize Fogel had been omitted from the completed prisoner exchange.

The Biden administration’s Republican opponents have sought to minimize the political impact of Thursday’s prison swap, including US senator Tom Cotton, a member of his congressional chamber’s intelligence committee.

“We all join in the joy for the family and friends of the American hostages that were released [but] that joy is tempered by the reality that there are going to be more hostages in the future,” Cotton said on Face the Nation.

Gershkovich’s Journal editor, Paul Beckett, also acknowledged criticism that the kind of deal which led to the reporter’s release could motivate the taking of more American hostages.

“We understand the risks, we understand the hypotheticals,” Beckett said on Face the Nation. “I think the key to all of this is what can now be done to prevent these countries doing this in the future. We need to find a way to take away the incentive to do it in the first place.”

Finer said the White House has already implemented measures meant to prevent others from facing a similar plight in the future.

He mentioned the creation of a list of countries that present a heightened risk for Americans to be unlawfully or wrongfully detained. He also said the administration has sought to “draw a lot of attention to places where we do not think Americans should travel for exactly that reason”.

Finer also referenced working with Congress on legislation that provided mechanisms to sanction “countries and officials who conduct these sorts of wrongful or unlawful detentions”. And he reiterated pledges to eventually get Fogel back to his family.

After the news broke of the prisoner swap, Pennsylvania’s US senators Bob Casey and John Fetterman – along with members of the House of Representatives – pushed for Fogel to be included in the exchange, saying he had severe health issues and had been unjustly imprisoned.

Related: ‘Soul-crushing’: US families of those left out of Russia prisoner swap dispirited

Casey, Fetterman, and others sent a letter to US secretary of state Anthony Blinken in 2022 encouraging him to classify Fogel as wrongfully detained, a key designation that could help efforts to secure his return.

“Although he may not carry the notoriety of a celebrity WNBA athlete, we believe the Biden Administration must work to bring Mr Fogel safely home to his family,” said the letter, which eluded to when champion pro basketball player Brittney Griner was brought back to the US from a Russian prison in exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

The recent swap – which additionally saw eight Russians, including a convicted murderer, return home – also included the release of several Russian dissidents. One of them spoke to Reuters on Saturday and spoke of already thinking about returning to Russia – though he vowed to continue engaging in political activism from abroad.

“As people who were actually deported, who were kicked out of the country, we all have a great desire to return,” dissident Andrei Pivovarov told Reuters in an interview on Saturday.

“I definitely want to be in Russia. I am a Russian politician, and that is very important to me,” Pivovarov said. “It is clear that they [the Russian authorities] will not allow us to return, although we want to.”