{"id":1397575,"date":"2022-03-24T05:14:52","date_gmt":"2022-03-24T09:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1397575"},"modified":"2022-03-24T05:14:56","modified_gmt":"2022-03-24T09:14:56","slug":"shes-a-political-prisoner-wnbas-brittney-griner-remains-in-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/shes-a-political-prisoner-wnbas-brittney-griner-remains-in-russia\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018She\u2019s A Political Prisoner\u2019: WNBA\u2019s Brittney Griner Remains In Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fshes-a-political-prisoner-wnbas-brittney-griner-remains-in-russia%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1397575&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/03\/GettyImages-1346467885.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p><span>WNBA star Brittney Griner has been in Russian custody since February, after Russian Federal Customs Service officials searched her luggage at an airport near Moscow, saying they found vape cartridges containing hashish oil. Last week, TASS, a Russian state news agency, reported that a Moscow court made the decision to extend Griner\u2019s detention, meaning the WNBA player will spend at least the next two months detained by Russian authorities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cWhat we\u2019re being told is that she was returning from a FIBA basketball tournament, a qualifier for the World Cup, back into Moscow,\u201d Aron Solomon, Chief Legal Analyst for Esquire Digital told The Daily Wire. \u201cThe season had already begun. So, we should believe that to be true. Supposedly, she had vape pens with, as you said, quote unquote \u2018hashish oil.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cAnd the charges are of the amount that it would be a trafficable amount, which is why we\u2019re talking about 10 years and plus potentially in prison,\u201d Solomon said. \u201cNow, I personally will tell you that there have been American athletes who\u2019ve been playing for many years in places like Russia \u2014 and after playing for seven years like Brittney Griner has, who knows what she had in her possession that she might\u2019ve thought was [an] extremely minor thing? And we\u2019re not talking about trafficable amounts of stuff. So, I think that in this part of the story, as it plays out, we may find out that there are some grains of truth in the story that\u2019s being weaved from Russia, that she might\u2019ve had some kind of device for her own personal use. But that\u2019s what we\u2019re being told right now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The timing of the arrest certainly raises eyebrows, as relations between Russia and the United States are strained following Vladamir Putin\u2019s invasion of Ukraine. The idea of Griner being granted a fair trial in Russia is far-fetched, making it difficult to predict how her case will play out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cSomething that is very important for us in the United States to kind of keep our eyes and ears on is the fact that as we\u2019ve seen over the past few weeks, Russia\u2019s not a democracy,\u201d Solomon said. \u201cAnd the rule of law that we often take for granted in the United States doesn\u2019t exist in Russia. So, when people ask me all the time about this case to make predictions \u2014 predictions as to whether she\u2019s really going to get in front of a judge now on May 19th, predictions as to when Brittney Griner is going to get out of detainment \u2014 it\u2019s impossible to make because it\u2019s based entirely on something that is anti-legal, which is caprice, which is the government\u2019s desire to do whatever they want when they want.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>For the past several weeks, no one from the United States government had been granted access to Griner. That changed Wednesday, as U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price told CNN that an official from the U.S. embassy was \u201cgranted consular access to Brittney Griner.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cWithin the past couple hours, an official from our embassy has been granted consular access to Brittney Griner,\u201d Price said on CNN. \u201cWe were able to check on her condition. We will continue to work very closely with her legal team, with her broader network to see to it that she is treated fairly. That is a message that we will continue to convey in no uncertain terms to the Russian Federation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Price told CNN that Griner was in \u201cgood condition,\u201d something Solomon assumed when speaking with The Daily Wire.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cI\u2019m going to guess that physically, she\u2019s reasonably safe,\u201d Solomon told The Daily Wire. \u201cI\u2019m not talking about emotionally or spiritually, but physically. The reason being is because I feel that there\u2019s a couple things going on here \u2014 which I know we\u2019ll get into soon \u2014 but she is clearly a very valuable person right now for the Russian government, and they\u2019re not going to let anything happen to her in detention, in my opinion. That would go against everything that they seem to be doing. So, I\u2019m sure that she\u2019s being offered reasonably good food and there\u2019s reasonable physical safety. I hope she\u2019s able to get a little bit of exercise.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cI would feel reasonably confident that she\u2019s physically, probably okay,\u201d Solomon said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The question now becomes how Griner is able to safely return home to the United States, which, according to Solomon, will not be an easy task.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cThe best way for us to think about it is at this point, she\u2019s a political prisoner,\u201d Solomon said. \u201cNow, you might say that she\u2019s also a legal prisoner, but the thing is, we don\u2019t even know the depth of what the charges are. What we\u2019ve been told in North America is, a couple of days ago, that the Russian court extended her detention to May 19th. And I believe that that\u2019s a very fungible, a very sliding date. I would be shocked if on May 19th, you\u2019ve got consular access, you\u2019ve got Brittney Griner being represented by American lawyers who work with a Russian law firm, or Russian lawyers who work with an American firm. I think this will play out as long as it makes sense for Russia to play it out, given their aggressions in Ukraine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>While Griner\u2019s detainment in Russia has certainly been in the news, it has surprisingly stayed under the radar, especially considering Griner\u2019s prominence in women\u2019s sports.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cI think that while Russia really sees her as being somebody great to take as a political prisoner, the reality is this is indicative of how a lot of people in the United States see women\u2019s sport,\u201d Solomon told The Daily Wire. \u201cAnd of course, people might be thinking, \u2018Why was Brittney Griner in Russia in the first place?\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cIt\u2019s because she can\u2019t earn the kind of living in the WNBA that our athletes should want to live,\u201d he continued. \u201cAnd there\u2019s one great quote from about five years ago from Diana Taurasi, who\u2019s actually a teammate of Brittney Griner\u2019s for <\/span><span>UMMC Ekaterinburg. <\/span><span>She said \u2026 \u2018We had to go to a communist country to get paid like capitalists.\u2019 Which is so backwards to everything that was in the history books in sixth grade.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i>Joe Morgan is the Sports Reporter for The Daily Wire. Most recently, Morgan covered the Clippers, Lakers, and the NBA for Sporting News. Send your sports questions to sports@dailywire.com.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest growing conservative media companies for breaking news, investigative reporting, sports, podcasts, in-depth analysis, books, and entertainment for a reason: because we believe in what we do. We believe in our country, in the value of truth and the freedom to speak it, and in the right to challenge tyranny wherever we see it. Believe the same? <a class=\"in-cell-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Become a member now and join our mission<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WNBA star Brittney Griner has been in Russian custody since February, after Russian Federal Customs Service officials searched her luggage at an airport near Moscow, saying they found vape cartridges<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1397575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1397575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1397575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1397575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1397575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1397575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1397575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}