Biden administration proposes prisoner swap to free Brittney Griner

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced Wednesday that the United States has offered to release a Russian arms dealer jailed in the United States in exchange for the release of WNBA superstars Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, both US citizens currently being held by the Russian government to be detained. Blinken added that the US had presented a “substantive proposal” for the release of Griner and Whelan, who the State Department said had been “unjustly imprisoned.”

Blinken said Wednesday at a State Department news briefing that President Joseph Biden was “directly involved” and approved the proposal. He did not specifically confirm that Bout was part of the proposed swap, saying he “cannot and will not go into the details of what we have been proposing to the Russians over the course of so many weeks now,” according to a report by CNN .

Blinken continued, “Regarding the President, of course, not only has he been directly involved, he subscribes to every proposal we make and certainly when it comes to Americans being arbitrarily detained abroad, including in this particular case.”

Unidentified sources close to the matter told CNN that the President’s support for prisoner swaps trumped opposition from the Justice Department, which as a matter of course opposes such deals in general.

The Russian government was quick to point out that the US proposal has not yet been accepted. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that “there has been no agreement on this issue so far.”

Blinken said he plans to raise the issue in a phone call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov this week, adding: “My hope would be that by speaking to Foreign Minister Lavrov I can advance efforts to get them home. “

“I think it’s useful to send clear, direct messages to the Russians about important priorities for us,” Blinken said. “And as I mentioned earlier, that includes securing the homecoming of Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan.”

Griner was arrested for cannabis possession in February

Griner, the star center for the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and a two-time women’s basketball Olympic gold medalist, was arrested by Russian authorities in February at an airport outside Moscow after customs officials allegedly found vape cartridges containing less than a gram of cannabis oil in her luggage. Griner has pleaded guilty to charges that could see her jailed for up to 10 years. Her trial continues at a courthouse in the Moscow suburb of Kimki while authorities hear additional witnesses before deciding her fate.

Whelan has been held by Russian authorities since 2018 on espionage charges. If the Biden administration’s offer is accepted by the Russian government, Griner and Whelan would be swapped for Viktor Bout, a Russian convicted of arms trafficking in 2018 and serving a 25-year sentence in the US.

A senior Biden administration official said the Russian government failed to respond to the “substantive offer” made in June, adding that “it takes two to tango.”

“We begin all negotiations to bring home Americans who have been held hostage or wrongly imprisoned with a bad actor on the other side. We start all of this with someone who took an American human and treated him as a bargaining chip,” the official said. “So in a way it’s not surprising, while it’s discouraging, that those same actors don’t necessarily respond directly to our offers and don’t engage constructively in negotiations.”

The official did not disclose the terms of the offer, saying it was up to Russia’s court to “act on it, but at the same time it doesn’t leave us passive as we continue to communicate the offer at a very high level.”

John Kirby, the National Security Council’s strategic communications coordinator, said Wednesday that Biden administration officials spoke with the families of Griner and Whelan before Blinken unveiled the prisoner swap offer. He added that the White House is focused on bringing the two Americans home.

“We urge Russians to take a positive view of this proposal so that we can bring these two individuals home,” Kirby said. “I think the details are best left between us and our Russian colleagues.”

Apparently unhappy with the Biden administration for publicizing the offer, the Kremlin noted that prisoner swap deals are usually negotiated discreetly.

“We know that such issues are discussed without such release of information,” Peskov told reporters during a conference call. “Usually the public hears about it when the agreements have already been implemented.”

Griner’s attorneys, Alexander Boykov and Maria Blagovolina, said the WNBA star’s trial must be completed before an exchange can be negotiated.

“From a legal point of view, the exchange is only possible after a court decision,” the lawyers said, as quoted by the Russian media company RBC. “We’re definitely excited for Brittney to be home soon and hope that’s the case.”