According to a senior administration official, the Biden administration secured the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner from a Russian jail camp in return for an arms dealer. She was released on Thursday.
Paul Whelan, an American corporate security executive who is still imprisoned in Russia, had to be left behind, but President Joe Biden approved the deal, which was done in the United Arab Emirates.
In statements delivered from the White House on Thursday morning, Biden said, “She is safe, she is on a plane, and she is on her way home.” She should have been present the entire time, but she will soon be back in the arms of her loved ones.
Biden added, “I’m glad that today we have restored one more family,” and he pledged to keep fighting for Whelan’s release. “We’ll keep haggling to get Paul some relief. I make that promise.”
According to a senior administration official, Cherelle Griner, the wife of Brittney Griner, was present in the Oval Office with Biden and the two were able to speak with her on the phone.
Speaking following Biden, Cherelle Griner expressed her “sincere thanks” for the work of Biden and numerous other leaders she specifically highlighted.
According to a senior administration official, Griner will be taken to a medical facility in San Antonio where she will receive treatment. Apparently, Cherelle Griner, a senior administration official, will meet her there.
Viktor Bout, who Russian President Vladimir Putin had been hoping to have back and who had served 11 years of a 25-year sentence in the US, is now back in the Kremlin in what is one of the most high-profile prisoner swaps between Moscow and Washington since the Cold War.
However, several conservatives claimed Biden made a poor deal.
They criticized the White House for failing to secure Whelan’s release and for allowing Bout to walk free, claiming that this would encourage bad actors like Russia and North Korea to extradite more Americans in order to gain leverage in negotiations.
Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., criticized Biden’s decision to release Bout on Fox News, saying that it “just provided Putin a massive, huge tool in the toolkit to pay and outfit Russia’s war machine.”
Because Griner once stood in protest during the playing of the national anthem at WNBA games to bring attention to racial justice problems, some on the right even went so far as to attack Griner personally, saying she wasn’t as deserving of release as Whelan.
The story of Griner’s detention at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport in February, when Russian investigators claimed to have discovered vape canisters containing cannabis oil in her luggage, will come to an end with her return to the United States. She was later imprisoned for drug-related crimes.
