WNBA star Brittney Griner was freed by Russia on Thursday in exchange for an infamous arms dealer who schemed to kill US pilots in Colombia — sparking outrage from critics who blasted the deal and called it a “give up” by President Biden.
The 6-foot-9 basketball player — missing her iconic dreadlocks following nearly 10 months in Russian custody — was traded for “Merchant of Death” Viktor Bout on the tarmac of an Abu Dhabi airport in a dramatic scene paying homage to Cold War prisoner swaps.
“She’s protected, she’s on a plane, she’s on her way home,” Biden said on the White House, where he was joined by Griner’s wife, Cherelle.
However the controversial deal left ex-Marine Paul Whelan languishing in a Russian prison on what the US has called baseless espionage charges.
“I don’t understand why I’m still sitting here,” Whelan told CNN from the penal colony where he’s being held.
“I’m greatly disillusioned that more has not been done to secure my release, especially because the four-year anniversary of my arrest is coming up,” Whelan, 53, told CNN.
“My bags are packed. I’m able to go home. I just need an airplane to come back and get me.”
Former White House national security adviser and American ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton also blasted the exchange.
“This will not be a deal. This will not be a swap. This can be a give up,” he told CBS News.
“And terrorists and rogue states all all over the world will be aware of this, and it endangers other Americans in the longer term who might be grabbed and used as bargaining chips by individuals who don’t have the identical morals and scruples that we do.”
In other developments:
- The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed — blamed by the US for the 2018 slaying and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey — played a key role within the negotiations.
- Russian video showed Bout embracing his fellow Russians on the airport, then reportedly talking to his mother on a cellphone while winging his way home.
- Russians gloated online, with parliament member Maria Butina — who served an 18-month sentence within the US for acting as an unregistered foreign agent — invoking “The Godfather” movie and saying her country “made them a proposal that can not be refused.”
Griner, 32, was arrested at a Russian airport on Feb. 17 and accused of smuggling vape cartridges containing lower than a gram of cannabis oil.
The bust took place every week before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his deadly invasion of Ukraine, resulting in speculation the eight-time all-star center for the Phoenix Mercury was intended to be used as leverage against the US.
Griner was convicted on Aug. 4 and sentenced to nine years in prison, a move Biden called “unacceptable” in an announcement that also said, “My administration will proceed to work tirelessly and pursue every possible avenue to bring Brittney and Paul Whelan home safely as soon as possible.”
Bout, 55, was called “international arms trafficking enemy No. 1” by then-Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara, who said he fueled “among the most violent conflicts across the globe” before being busted in a sting operation in Thailand in 2008.
In 2012, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for conspiring to sell tens of millions of dollars value of weapons to Marxist terrorists in Colombia, including surface-to-air missiles and greater than 20,000 AK-47 rifles.
The evidence included a secretly recorded conversation during which Bout was told the missiles can be used to attack US helicopters and kill American pilots.
“We’ve the identical enemy,” he replied.
Recent York Mayor Adams’ chief counsel, Brendan McGuire, was one in all the federal terrorism prosecutors who convinced a Manhattan jury to seek out Bout guilty.
McGuire declined to comment on his release, City Hall said.
Bolton called swapping Bout for Griner “an enormous victory for Moscow over Washington” and said it “shows just how desperate the administration was to make this deal.”
Bolton also said that “the potential of a Bout-for-Whelan trade existed” when he was then-President Donald Trump’s national security adviser.
“And it wasn’t made, for excellent reasons having to take care of Viktor Bout,” he said.
Trump, 76, also questioned Biden’s decision to free “one in all the largest arms dealers anywhere on the earth” in a Truth Social post on Thursday, claiming Bout was “accountable for tens of 1000’s of deaths and horrific injuries.”
“Why wasn’t former Marine Paul Whelan included on this totally one-sided transaction? He would have been let loose for the asking,” the previous president said. “What a ‘silly’ and unpatriotic embarrassment for the USA!!!”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) tweeted that releasing Bout was “a present to Vladimir Putin, and it endangers American lives. Leaving Paul Whelan behind for that is unconscionable.”
Even within the sports world, the trade was seen as one-sided for Russia.
In response to the Cowboys’ Parson’s outrage over the exchange, former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason said on his WFAN show, “I’m telling you, more people feel that way than don’t.”
“It’s not a fair swap – it’s not. Everyone knows what happened to Brittney must have never happened. But man, we glance so pathetic,” he said.
In a joint statement, the Saudi and UAE ministries of foreign affairs said bin Salman and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed brokered the deal, calling it “a mirrored image of the mutual and solid friendship between their two countries and the US of America and the Russian Federation.”
Biden didn’t mention the Saudis during his remarks but thanked the UAE “for helping us facilitate Brittney’s return because that’s where she landed.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also said, “The one country that really negotiated this deal was the US and Russia.”
Additional reporting by Mark Moore, Jeremy Layton and Ariel Zilber