WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is tweeting in the defense of an American pastor who is being tried in Turkey on charges that he aided terror groups and committed espionage.

Trump tweeted late Tuesday that “Pastor Andrew Brunson, a fine gentleman and Christian leader in the United States, is on trial and being persecuted in Turkey for no reason.”

Trump says: “They call him a Spy, but I am more a Spy than he is. Hopefully he will be allowed to come home to his beautiful family where he belongs!”

Brunson, a 50-year-old evangelical pastor from North Carolina, faces up to 35 years in prison. Brunson denies any wrongdoing. The State Department has said Brunson’s case was being watched closely by “the entire U.S. government.”