Air Force combat veteran Joseph St. Clair, who was held in a Venezuelan prison until his release was secured by President Trump's envoy for special missions Richard Grenell, is “extremely excited to be back home,” Grenell said Tuesday, according to Newsmax.
Grenell's comments came the same day that he had traveled to Antigua, what he described as "a third... neutral country" in secret so as to meet with Venezuelan officials and secure St. Clair's release, with the envoy speaking about how they had “been negotiating.”The 33-year-old was wrongfully detained last fall when traveling along the Colombia-Venezuela border, the United States said. Grenell spoke by phone with "The Record With Greta Van Susteren" about St. Clair's release.
“We just made it back. We went early this morning to a third country, a neutral country. And I met with Venezuelan officials. We've been negotiating,” Grenell said. “We have around six Americans who are held against their will. And we got one of them home. And so, we just returned to Washington and are very excited to welcome Joe back home in the land of the free.”
“He's extremely excited to be back home. He's a very smart kid. He is passionate about making sure that people understand that to be an American is a really special thing. So, in terms of his story, I'm going to let him tell it, Greta. It's his story to tell. And I think that there's been some misinformation out there about it. And I think he will talk in due time,” Grenell added, speaking to Van Susteren.
A spokesperson for St. Clair’s family credited Trump with his return to the U.S.
Joe St. Clair is back in America.
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) May 20, 2025
I met Venezuelan officials in a neutral country today to negotiate an America First strategy.
This is only possible because @realDonaldTrump puts Americans first. @tsori233 pic.twitter.com/BItEnF9Ngg
“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 Newsmax.
The Trump administration is working more in returning Americans wrongly held abroad than the Biden administration did, according to Franks.
“[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. 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,” Franks said. “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.”
Franks added that “[H]e’s doing great. His parents are overjoyed. 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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