American Freed by Trump, John Oliver's Outrageous Segment, and Saving Your Marriage, with Stu Burguiere, and Jason and Erica Redman | Ep. 1046
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What is the story behind Ksenia Karelina's release?
Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. Hey, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. This morning, our staff, along with the world, woke up to incredible news involving a story we brought to you on Monday. That ballerina we told you about, Ksenia Karolina, she's on her way home. It's unbelievable. It's a miracle. I can't believe it. I'm so thrilled. I'm so grateful to President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. She has dual citizenship, Russian and American. She's an amateur ballerina over here. And for the last 15 months, she has been wrongfully detained in Russia on these trumped up bogus charges. And now she's free. This morning, Secretary of State Marco Rubio posting to X, quote,
American Ksenia Karolina is on a plane back home to the United States. She was wrongfully detained by Russia for over a year and President Trump secured her release. The president of the United States will continue to work for the release of all Americans. Last August, Ksenia was convicted, again, these are ridiculous charges, in Russia as she visited family there of state treason and handed a 12-year prison sentence in a Russian labor camp. Her crime, she donated $51 two years prior while in the United States as a US citizen to a US-based nonprofit that helps children and elderly impacted by the war in Ukraine. $50, you guys. The details of what happened to her are downright frightening. So she traveled to Russia for the first time in three years to visit her elderly grandmother. Her family still lives over there. First, she was detained for 16 hours at the airport for interrogation. She never even made it past the airport. Under suspicion, she might be some sort of a spy.
Then she was released, but they kept her phone. And boy, oh boy, did they go through it. That's how they found this payment on her Venmo. And they found the receipt of this donation on Monday. And by the way, and then they charged her first. They accused her of hooliganism, hooliganism. That's what they charged. And then they upped the ante to treason. which you can go to jail for a long, long time for. Originally, it was like 15 years, and then they were talking about a life sentence. And they strong-armed her into copying a plea because she didn't want to go to jail forever. They were like, well, you can go to jail for maybe five years if you say you did this. And she didn't think she had any options.
So she did, and they gave her a 12-year sentence. On Monday, I mean, literally four days ago, we had a long interview with Ksenia's boyfriend, Chris Van Yerden. Chris is a former international boxing organization welterweight world champion who retired from the sport last year to work full time on getting Ksenia home. See, he had paid for her to take the trip as a Christmas gift so she could see her family. And he spoke to us on Monday about the charges she faced.
$51. After they took her phone, they sent her back to her family. So they released it to her family and they said, you're not allowed to leave here, Katerinburg. You will hear from us. And we now know within the three weeks from January 2nd till January 27th, They investigated every single thing on her cell phone. This is where they came across the Venmo, $51 on Venmo, charged her for treason, funding the enemy state. That's what she was charging for, funding the enemy state, buying weapons. And if you know, I started laughing and crying in the same time because it was like, if you know my Ksenia, she is the sweetest, kindest person you'll meet. She goes out of her way to do good for people.
She hates seeing people hurt. So you can imagine elderly people, young kids without food and water, she would be the first to donate money.
Chris also described the very harsh prison conditions she was facing in Siberia. He told us that while Ksenia is mentally strong, she was signaling in letters that she did not expect to survive the full sentence over there.
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