Brittney Griner’s Sentence Renews Pressure on President Biden

WASHINGTON — Shortly after a Moscow judge sentenced Brittney Griner to nine years in prison on Thursday, calls grew louder for President Biden to find a way to bring her back home.

“I call on President Biden and the U.S. government to redouble their efforts to do what is necessary and possible,” Reverend Al Sharpton said in a statement.

U.S. officials and analysts have convicted basketball star Griner, who plays for the Russian team in the WNBA offseason. But the cold reality of her sentence on drug charges came as a shock and renewed calls for Mr. Biden to release her. This is despite critics outraging that exchanging prisoners for Moscow rewards Russian hostage-taking.

The consequences are heartbreaking for the Biden administration, which is trying to maintain a hard line against Russian President Vladimir V. Putin over the war in Ukraine.

Andrea Schneider, an international dispute resolution expert at the Cardozo School of Law, said, “There’s nothing good going on here.” Either you are, or you are not trying hard enough.”

Kremlin officials have said no potential deals can go forward until her trial is complete, creating glimmer hope that the ruling may open the door to an exchange. Analysts say that is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

“I don’t think this will be resolved anytime soon,” said Jared Guenther, a human rights attorney representing Americans held by foreign governments. “I think the fact that Putin didn’t say yes right away meant he saw the US offer and said, ‘Well, that’s their first offer. can be put in

The US offer, first presented to Russia in June, called for the release of Griner and former Marine Paul N. Whelan, who was arrested in Moscow and convicted of espionage in 2020.

The Biden administration has proposed trading the two Americans for notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who sells weapons to a Colombian rebel group that the US considered a terrorist organization at the time. He is awaiting a 25-year federal prison sentence for offering to do so.

The proposal already reshapes US diplomacy with Russia, which has been frozen at a senior level since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24. His July 29 phone call on the matter was the first conversation between Secretary of State Antony J. Brinken and Russian Secretary of State Sergey V. Lavrov since the war began. But the Kremlin didn’t seem to move. The White House has said Russia made an unspecified “malicious” counteroffer that the United States does not take seriously.

Lavrov told reporters on Friday that the two countries would continue to discuss the issue through established channels. He reiterated the Kremlin’s insistence that the United States not discuss negotiations in public.

But the pressure is biased. Putin has long called for Bout’s release, perhaps out of loyalty to a man with deep ties to the Russian security state, but the continued imprisonment of the arms dealer will cost Putin little. do not have. In other words, time is in Putin’s favor.

Biden, on the other hand, is under pressure from both sides.

Griner’s supporters on one side. Her wife, Sherrel Griner, has publicly pleaded for Biden to strike a deal with Putin as soon as possible. These pleas have been echoed by Sharpton, Democratic activist groups, television pundits, professional athletes and social celebrities on his media. (Mr Sharpton on Thursday also called for Mr Whelan’s release.)

“How would she feel if America had her back?” NBA superstar LeBron James said in mid-July. “I was like, ‘Do you want to go back to America?'”

That was before Biden’s proposal to release Bout was made public. Officials said they disclosed a proposal confirmed last week by a person briefed on the negotiations to increase pressure on Russia. But the revelations may also reflect a desire to show Griner’s supporters that Biden is not a dictator.

White House national security spokesman John F. Kirby said at the time, “It’s important that the American people know how hard President Biden is working to bring Britney Griner and Paul Whelan home. I believe that,” he said. “We think it’s important to let our families know how hard we’re working.”

After Griner was sentenced Thursday, Biden renewed his pledge to “do whatever it takes to get Britney and Paul Whelan safely home as soon as possible.”

But the White House didn’t say how Biden would achieve that goal. Kirby said, “I don’t think it would be beneficial for Brittany or Paul to speak more publicly about the state of the negotiations and what the president does and doesn’t want to do.”

But most of the additional proposals are sure to amplify criticism from other sides of Mr. Biden, and accusations that Mr. Biden is succumbing to blackmail by Mr. Putin, whom he calls a war criminal. .

“This is why dictatorships like Venezuela, Iran, China and Russia hold Americans hostage because they know they’re going to get something out of it,” said Florida Republican Rep. Mike Waltz. A lawmaker told Newsmax last week. “They know the administration somewhere will pay eventually. And this just puts a target on the backs of every American out there.”

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo echoed his criticism in an interview with Fox News last week, saying that releasing Mr. Bout would likely result in “more” Americans being arrested abroad. And former President Donald J. Trump, who took pride in freeing Americans detained abroad during his tenure, denounced the proposed deal in broad terms.

Bout is “absolutely one of the worst people in the world and a potentially spoiled person will go to Russia laden with drugs so he will be given his freedom,” he said. rice field. (Russian officials who detained Griner at an airport in the Moscow region in mid-February found less than a gram of cannabis oil in her bag.)

Genther, an attorney for another detained American, said Biden had options beyond withdrawing the offer. He could find new ways to torment Putin.

“President Vladimir Putin needs to dramatically increase the cost of keeping them in custody,” Genther said. “It’s not just giving Putin what he wants; it’s causing him pain at the same time.”

But it’s not easy. Biden administration officials have spent months devising ways to inflict enough pain on Mr. Putin to stop him from invading Ukraine. That goal, like Griner and Whelan’s freedom, remains elusive.