An emotional Utah man who freed after being held in captivity in Venezuela for two years thanked President Trump at a Saturday evening meeting at the White House for helping with his release.
Joshua Holt, 26, had traveled to the South America country in 2016 to marry a woman he met online but was imprisoned and accused of being a spy for the CIA. His release, ordered by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who just won reelection in a vote decried by watchdogs as dubious, is seen as a “gesture of goodwill” to the Trump administration which has been critical of Venezuela.
“Those two years, they were a very, very, very difficult two years,” said Holt, as he sat next to Trump in the Oval Office. “Not really the great vacation that I was looking for. … I’m just so grateful for what you guys have done.”
Republican Senator Bob Corker (Tenn.), who met with Maduro in a surprise meeting in Caracas a day earlier, has been instrumental in negotiating for the release from a notorious Caracas prison.
Thanks for reading InsideHook. Sign up for our daily newsletter and be in the know.
