A spokesperson for the family of Joseph St. Clair, a U.S. Air Force combat veteran wrongfully detained by Venezuela since last fall whose release was secured Tuesday, told Newsmax that St. Clair wouldn't be coming home if not for President Donald Trump.
Richard Grenell, Trump's envoy for special missions, secretly traveled to Antigua on Tuesday morning to meet with top Venezuelan officials and gain St. Clair's release. The U.S. claimed St. Clair, 33, was wrongfully detained by Venezuelan authorities while he was traveling in Colombia along the Venezuela border.
"This was possible today only because President Trump has made such a priority of bringing home Americans that are unjustly detained abroad," Jonathan Franks told "Finnerty."
Since beginning his second term, Trump has emphasized returning Americans who have been wrongfully detained abroad. Those reportedly include Edan Alexander and Keith Siegel, held hostage by Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists; Ksenia Karelina, a ballet dancer who served 14 months in a Russian penal colony; Marc Fogel, a teacher who had been serving a 14-year prison sentence in Russia following a 2021 arrest; three Americans held by the Taliban and six others held by Venezuela who were released days after Trump's inauguration following a Grenell trip to Caracas.
Franks said the Trump administration is taking efforts a step further in returning Americans wrongfully held abroad than the Biden administration.
"[The Biden administration] certainly came part of the way to where people like me think we need to be in terms of bringing people home relatively quickly after they're detained," Franks said. "President Trump has taken that and turned up the dial all the way to the max and has succeeded in bringing folks home in cases that I thought were hopeless six months ago.
"The difference is that the Trump administration has looked for reasons to bring people home, as opposed to the Biden administration that often looked for reasons not to."
Stars and Stripes reported in May that St. Clair, who served four tours in Afghanistan, sought alternative treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder in Costa Rica after graduating from law school. He then traveled to Colombia, where he worked at a language school.
St. Clair and a friend from Colombia were traveling as tourists near the Venezuelan border in October when Venezuelan authorities arrested them. After being detained, St. Clair was transported to a Venezuelan prison that has been condemned by human rights groups for abuse violations.
"He's doing great. His parents are overjoyed," Franks said. "He had gone near the Colombian border with a friend to visit that friend's relative and was abducted inside Colombia. And he did not intend to enter Venezuela, nor did he do so voluntarily."
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