“Today is just a happy day for me and my family.”
Watch Cherelle Griner's full remarks on the release of her wife Brittney Griner from Russia in a high-level prisoner exchange. https://t.co/H0w8BNpEvR pic.twitter.com/CSW2oIRUoz
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 8, 2022
In announcing Brittney Griner’s release, President Biden said the U.S. has “not forgotten about Paul Whelan” and will “never give up” trying to secure his release from Russia. The corporate security executive has been jailed in Russia since December 2018. https://t.co/H0w8BNHNJZ pic.twitter.com/68ReMNconb
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 8, 2022
Every level of this news story is dumb and retarded.
Daily Caller:
The Biden administration said it made the “very painful decision” to bring Brittney Griner home Thursday, one that required former U.S. marine Paul Whelan to stay behind in Russian prison, Politico reported.
Russian authorities arrested Whelan for alleged espionage in December 2018. He was subsequently convicted and sentenced to 16 years in prison in June 2020. Negotiations for Whelan’s release ramped up following Griner’s arrest and detention earlier in 2022, with Washington pushing for a two-for-one deal with Russia: Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner for the “Merchant of Death” arms dealer Viktor Bout, Politico reported.
Moscow previously said it would only consider releasing both Griner and Whelan if the U.S. included Vadim Krasikov, an ex-KGB colonel convicted of murdering a Georgian citizen in 2019, in the trade, according to Politico. After multinational negotiations, Russia informed U.S. officials the country would only trade Griner for Bout.
Let’s start with the conservative narrative that Whelan should have been released instead: I basically agree with that. In my experience, Russia doesn’t put people in prison for no reason, and I think he really was a spy who received a USB drive with classified Russian intelligence on it to bring back to US authorities. But if that’s the case, he was on an actual mission for the US government, which means he should definitely have priority over some woman who brought drugs into Russia.
By the way: no one denies she brought drugs into Russia, no one denies that is illegal, and typically, the US government does not negotiate for the release of people who committed obvious crimes in other countries, who admitted to the crimes, and who no one questions did the crimes.
Here is where the whole thing completely falls apart: Marc Fogel, another US citizen, a white heterosexual male, is currently in prison for bringing 17 grams of “medical marijuana” into Russia in 2021 – the US government does not classify him as “wrongfully detained.”
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