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'
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.
House Chief Deputy Whip Guy Reschenthaler was first notified in 2021 of Marc Fogel’s detention and began leading efforts to bring him home. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images )
"When you talked to career State Department officials, they understood what they were waiting for was a green light from the executive branch – but they could never say why they wouldn’t do these things," Kelly told Fox News Digital Tuesday. "They would say, ‘Well, we’re working on it. We’re working on it.’ But the stopping point was that they would not designate him the right way, and it seemed like they had no interest in getting it at all."
Kelly told Fox News Digital that, within the "political State Department," there "just didn’t seem to be any energy toward getting that designation done."
"There have been so many things since I’ve been in Congress that you get stonewalled on, and that was just one of those things I felt at the beginning – we were just getting stonewalled," Kelly said. "They were just giving us conversation."
Kelly said, though, that he could "feel that the career State Department personnel wanted to do something."
"But the political State Department was disinterested," Kelly said.
Former White House national security advisor Robert O’Brien, who served during the first Trump administration, also got involved in the effort to bring Marc Fogel home. (Eloisa Lopez/AFP via Getty Images)
O’Brien told Fox News Digital that he informed Ambassador Roger Carstens, Biden’s special envoy for hostage affairs, of his outreach. O’Brien told Fox News Digital that the Biden administration encouraged that outreach.
Carstens told Fox News Digital that he was "well aware that O’Brien sent the letter on Marc Fogel’s behalf."
"Robert O’Brien and his predecessor, Jim O’Brien, and I all worked together quite closely over the last four years to keep doing the hard work of bringing Americans home," Carstens, who also served during the final year of the first Trump administration, told Fox News Digital.
President Donald Trump greets former detainee Marc Fogel as he arrives at the White House on Feb. 11, 2025. (Ting Shen/AFP via Getty Images)
He added: "Bringing Americans home might very well be the last nonpartisan issue in this country and any administration that brings an American home should be congratulated for their efforts and their successes."
Meanwhile, Reschenthaler was at the White House Tuesday night with Trump to welcome Fogel back to the United States.
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"I was honored to be alongside President Trump at the White House to welcome Fogel back to the United States," Reschenthaler told Fox News Digital. "President Trump promised to bring him home and kept his word – building on the already great success of his weeks-old presidency."
Reschenthaler added: "While President Biden refused to prioritize this Pennsylvanian, President Trump delivered and secured his release. The American people are overjoyed to have strong and skilled leadership back in charge."
Brooke Singman is a political correspondent and reporter for Fox News Digital, Fox News Channel and FOX Business.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-administration-slow-walked-marc-fogel-designation-wrongful-detainee-republicans-say