Trump meets with freed Russian prisoner Stephen Hubbard in the Oval Office

Hubbard had been behind bars in Russia for more than four years.

President Donald Trump hosted Stephen Hubbard a little over a week after he was freed from a Russian prison.

Hubbard, a retired teacher from Michigan, had been behind bars for more than four years on charges that he fought as a mercenary in Ukraine. His legal team has denied the Russian accusations and said he was not involved in any military activity.

“He was somebody I wanted to get back,” Trump said as he hosted Hubbard.

Trump has said previously that he asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to free Hubbard and that the U.S. did not have to release anyone in return.

The White House allowed a limited pool of journalists into the meeting, allowing primarily news photographers and a television crew.

Hubbard said he’d heard many times that he’d be released from a Russian prison but never trusted he was told.

He said he’d adopted a posture of “seeing is believing” and “actions speak louder than words.”

It was only when he was given new clothes and led out to a waiting vehicle that he said he let himself believe.

“Only when they started giving me new clothes and leading me to the exit of the prison,” Hubbard told Trump. “I went out and I saw the car, and I was accompanied by a couple of Russians, then I believed, finally believed, on the drive from Moscow to St. Petersburg, ‘I’m really going somewhere.’”