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Donald Trump defends Russia’s arrest of out WNBA player Brittney Griner
Donald Trump justified Russia’s prosecution of out WNBA player Brittney Griner, saying that she was “loaded up on drugs” and is a “spoiled person.”
Griner, 31, who plays for the Phoenix Mercury, was arrested at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport this past February because she had less than a gram of cannabis oil in two vape cartridges in her luggage, just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She is being tried on international drug-smuggling charges and could be sentenced to ten years in a penal colony.
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The Biden administration reportedly offered a prison exchange to get Griner out of Russia; the U.S. would hand over arms dealer Viktor Bout – who has served 11 years of a 25-year sentence in the U.S. – and Russia would give Griner and Paul Whelan, a corporate security director who was arrested in 2018 in Russia and is serving a 16-year sentence for allegedly spying.
The Biden administration has maintained that both Griner and Whelan are “wrongfully detained and must be allowed to come home.”
Trump criticized the deal during an interview at his Bedminster golf club on Friday, saying Griner “went in there loaded up with […]