White House: We Wanted More Americans Released, But Russia Wouldn’t ‘Budge’ This Is What ‘We Could Get’

On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby commented on the omission of imprisoned American Marc Fogel from the prisoner swap deal with Russia by stating that the U.S. wanted Fogel released, “we tried on multiple occasions throughout this process over many, many months to include Mr. Fogel. And that was the plan, but we just couldn’t get the Russians to budge. This was the deal we could get, this is what we could manage.”

Kirby said, [relevant remarks begin around 3:00] “Well, we wanted him to be in the deal, Bret. Believe me, we tried on multiple occasions throughout this process over many, many months to include Mr. Fogel. And that was the plan, but we just couldn’t get the Russians to budge. This was the deal we could get, this is what we could manage. It doesn’t mean that our focus on Mr. Fogel evaporates at all. As a matter of fact, it simply intensifies, and there are ongoing conversations right now in discussions with the Russians to see what we can do to try to get Mr. Fogel home. We will keep at it. The president said it today, and he means it, we’re going to everything we can to get every wrongfully detained American back home or any American, wrongfully detained or not, that’s being held overseas unlawfully.”

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