President Trump Quietly Negotiated the Release of Egyptian-American Captive, Says Report

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by Micah J. Fleck

Not all actions under President Trump have been horrible, and that rang very true recently when Egyptian-American Aya Hijazi and her husband Mohamed Hassanein, prisoners held under false charges for years in Egypt, were finally released after quiet negotiations were made between Trump’s administration and Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi over the course of several weeks.

According to reports:

Hijazi, who grew up in Falls Church, Va., and graduated from George Mason University, was working in Cairo with the Belady Foundation, which she and her husband established as a haven and rehabilitation center for street children in Cairo.

The couple and their co-workers had been incarcerated since May 1, 2014, on child abuse and trafficking charges that were widely dismissed by human rights workers and U.S. officials as false. Virtually no evidence was ever presented against them, and for nearly three years they were held as hearings were inexplicably postponed and trial dates canceled. Human rights groups alleged that they were abused in detention.

The Obama administration unsuccessfully pressed Sissi’s government for their release. It was not until Trump moved to reset U.S. relations with Egypt by embracing Sissi at the White House on April 3 — he publicly hailed the autocrat’s leadership as “fantastic” and offered the U.S. government’s “strong backing” — that Egypt’s posture changed. Last Sunday, a court in Cairo dropped all charges against Hijazi and the others.

The art of the deal actually at work, for once? We’ll take it; an American hostage has been returned home.

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