CHARLOTTE, N.C. _ President Donald Trump leveled harsh words against Turkey this week over its jailing and trial of North Carolina pastor Andrew Brunson.
"They call him a Spy, but I am more a Spy than he is," Trump tweeted late Tuesday.
Trump called Brunson "a fine gentleman and Christian leader in the United States" who "is being persecuted for no reason."
Trump ended his tweet with: "Hopefully he will be allowed to come home to his beautiful family where he belongs!"
The president's tweet had drawn about 74,000 likes and 38,000 comments by Wednesday night.
On Wednesday, Wess Mitchell, the top U.S. diplomat for Europe, said the charges against the 50-year-old Brunson were "laughable," according to The Associated Press.
"The Turks claim to have a high standard of justice, the indictment suggests otherwise," Mitchell told the House Foreign Affairs Committee, according to the AP. "This is clearly an innocent man. We are watching to see if the Turks adhere to their stated standards of justice. If that does not happen, we are considering options for consequences."
Brunson faces a sentence of life in prison in Turkey after a new "terrorism" indictment against him in March.
The independent, bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said in March that it "strongly condemns" the indictment that charges Brunson with "leadership in a terrorist organization."
Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also have called for Brunson's release, most recently Tillerson during a visit to Ankara in February.
Brunson is being held as a pawn in a hostage negotiation, David Curry of Open Doors USA said in March. Open Doors is a nonprofit organization that supports Christians in countries that face persecution for their beliefs.
Turkey is trying to get the United States to extradite Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, someone Turkish President Recep Erdogan believes is at least partially responsible for the failed coup in 2016, Curry told the Mission Network News.
Brunson was held without charges beginning in October 2016. He was imprisoned that December on "a serious, yet completely unfounded, charge _ 'membership in an armed terrorist organization,' " according to the American Center for Law and Justice, a not-for-profit religious corporation based in Washington, D.C.
