proposed prisoner swap to free WNBA star Brittney Griner from Russia, Donald Trump has derided her as a “potentially spoiled person” who entered Russia “loaded up with drugs.”Trump made the comments Friday on a radio talk show, The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, regarding the Biden administration’s offer to trade Russian arms dealer Victor Bout for Griner and Paul Whelan, a former marine convicted on espionage charges in Russia — charges he says are false.
The U.S. government has classified both Griner and Whelan as “wrongfully detained.”“She went in there loaded up with drugs into a hostile territory where they’re very vigilant about drugs,” Trump said of Griner, the center for the Phoenix Mercury. “They don’t like drugs.
And she got caught. And now we’re supposed to get her out — and she makes, you know, a lot of money, I guess.”“It certainly doesn’t seem like a very good trade, does it?” he continued. “[Bout is] an absolute — one of the worst in the world, and he’s going to be given his freedom because a potentially spoiled person goes into Russia loaded up with drugs.”Griner was arrested in February at an airport near Moscow after it was discovered she had vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage, and she has been jailed since then.
The substance is illegal in Russia. The lesbian star has said she was prescribed it for chronic pain and that she took the cartridges to Russia by mistake.