While former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan has spent 1,441 days in Russian captivity on bogus espionage charges, President Joe Biden just announced that WNBA player Brittney Griner, who knowingly brought drugs into a country where they're illegal, was freed in a prisoner swap today.
According to Fox News:
Griner was freed from a Russian penal colony on Thursday in a prisoner exchange for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
Bout is known as the "Merchant of Death" and the possible swap for him was floated back in May. He was in the middle of a 25-year sentence in federal prison after he was convicted of conspiracy to kill Americans relating to the support of a Colombian terrorist organization.
He was dubbed the "Merchant of Death" because of his notoriety for running a fleet of aging Soviet-era cargo planes to conflict-ridden hotspots in Africa. His dealings inspired the Nicolas Cage film "Lord of War."
In sum, the Russians got back a man who plotted to kill Americans, while America got back an athlete who doesn't even stand for our national anthem.
The excessiveness of Griner’s 9-year sentence aside, unlike Wheelan, she did actually break the law, and faced the same penalties that a Russian would for the crime. Whelan is unquestionably more deserving of being freed, and Biden has hedged against criticism by claiming that the Russians didn't give him a choice in which prisoner to free (which, if true, only means they didn't negotiate well enough). She’s also not the only American who was in a Russian prison for a marijuana charge. 61-year-old American teacher Marc Fogel was caught with 20 grams of medicinal marijuana in Russia and sentenced to 14 years in prison in July of this year, more time than Griner was sentenced to, but his case has largely gone ignored by Biden.
This is what John Brennan, Obama’s deputy national security advisor for homeland security and counterterrorism, said about “Merchant of Death” arms dealer Viktor Bout in 2010. pic.twitter.com/dBnVGjuYh0
— Cameron Cawthorne (@Cam_Cawthorne) December 8, 2022
Biden said in a brief statement following the news of Griner's release; “Britney will soon be back in the arms of loved ones, where she should’ve been all along. This is a day we’ve worked towards for a long time, we never stopped pushing for her release. It took painstaking negotiations.”
No mention was made by Biden of who it was he had to swap to guarantee Griner’s release.
Biden made reference to Whelan, but offered no insight into what they were doing to secure his release. "We never forgot about Brittney, we've not forgotten about Paul Whelan, who's been unjustly detained in Russia for years" he said. But he wouldn't prioritize his release, either.
Matt Palumbo is the author of Fact-Checking the Fact-Checkers: How the Left Hijacked and Weaponized the Fact-Checking Industry and The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros
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