On Thursday, the White House announced one of the most horrendous diplomatic moves since Biden's disastrous and deadly pullout from Afghanistan: Biden agreed to swap the WNBA's Brittney Griner, jailed in Russia earlier this year after pleading guilty to a drug charge, for one of the most dangerous weapons dealers and terrorists on the planet.
At the same time the regime made the very political decision to swap for a gay, black basketball player because she checked the right left-wing cultural boxes, Biden chose to leave a white, straight male and former Marine, Paul Whelan, in Russia after he's been there for years already, much to the angst of his family.
“The one-for-one exchange agreement negotiated with Moscow in recent weeks was given final approval by President Biden within just the last week, according to sources familiar with the deal. The swap, first reported by CBS News, took place on Thursday in the United Arab Emirates,” the outlet noted further.
“A White House official said President Biden was in the Oval Office Thursday morning on the phone, speaking with Griner, and her wife Cherelle Griner and Vice President Kamala Harris were also in the room. Per standard procedure for freed U.S. prisoners, Griner was expected to quickly undergo a medical evaluation,” the outlet continued.
In a tweet from his official Twitter account, Biden wrote: “She is safe. She is on a plane. She is on her way home.”
The outrage over the deal was apparent and swift. At the White House, Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy laced into press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
“They gave up a professional athlete. We gave up a prolific arms dealer who was convicted of trying to kill Americans, who is called the ‘Merchant of Death,'” Doocy asked.
Peter Doocy grills Jean-Pierre on Brittney Griner swap:
"They gave up a professional athlete. We gave up a prolific arms dealer who was convicted of trying to kill Americans, who is called the 'Merchant of Death.'" pic.twitter.com/5KtTvPL1iV
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) December 8, 2022
A furious Whelan family also issued a statement blasting the Biden amateurs.
“Despite the possibility that there might be an exchange without Paul, our family is still devastated. I can’t even fathom how Paul will feel when he learns. Paul has worked so hard to survive nearly 4 years of this injustice. His hopes had soared with the knowledge that the US government was taking concrete steps for once towards his release,” the family said on Thursday.
“He’d been worrying about where he’d live when he got back to the US. And now what? How do you continue to survive, day after day, when you know that your government has failed twice to free you from a foreign prison? I can’t imagine he retains any hope that a government will negotiate his freedom at this point. It’s clear that the US government has no concessions that the Russian government will take for Paul Whelan. And so Paul will remain a prisoner until that changes,” they said.
Previously, a former DEA agent sounded the alarm on this potential deal, calling it “dangerous” for the U.S. and the West.
Rob “Zach” Zachariasiewicz, in an August op-ed for USA Today, warned against trading Bout for Griner.
“Bout, who is known as the ‘Merchant of Death,’ provided the fuel for conflicts across the globe. He was a critical player in the global illicit arms trade not because he could obtain weapons but because he could deliver his destructive cargo anywhere in the world through his control of a private fleet of military aircraft. And he did just that,” he wrote.
“In a recorded undercover meeting, he declared to persons he believed to be terrorist facilitators that the United States was his sworn enemy. He offered them, as part of an extensive arsenal of heavy weapons, hundreds of surface-to-air missiles to be used against U.S. military advisers and the Colombian military,” Zachariasiewicz noted further.
“Negotiating for Bout’s release is a feckless and shortsighted foreign policy. Such actions merely encourage our adversaries to engage in the kidnapping, illegal detention, and ransoming of American citizens throughout the world,” he added.
Biden is a laughing stock around the world and a joke to serious countries.
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