{"id":1768344,"date":"2022-12-08T18:48:50","date_gmt":"2022-12-08T23:48:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1768344"},"modified":"2022-12-08T18:48:51","modified_gmt":"2022-12-08T23:48:51","slug":"top-democrat-senator-blasts-biden-over-releasing-terrorist-for-griner-deeply-disturbing-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/top-democrat-senator-blasts-biden-over-releasing-terrorist-for-griner-deeply-disturbing-decision\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Democrat Senator Blasts Biden Over Releasing Terrorist For Griner: \u2018Deeply Disturbing Decision\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/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%2Ftop-democrat-senator-blasts-biden-over-releasing-terrorist-for-griner-deeply-disturbing-decision%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=1768344&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--><p>Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, slammed President Joe Biden Thursday for releasing notorious terrorist Viktor Bout in exchange for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/topic\/brittney-griner\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Brittney Griner<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Griner, who has a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/2015\/04\/28\/brittney-griner-plea-deal-guilty-domestic-violence-glory-johnson-wnba\/26538559\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">criminal record<\/a> in the U.S. stemming from a domestic violence incident several years ago, was arrested in Russia back in February on drug charges, charges to which she pled guilty.<\/p>\n<p>In exchange for Griner, Biden released Bout, a Russian weapons trafficker who was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/breaking-biden-offers-to-release-notorious-russian-terrorist-in-exchange-for-brittney-griner-report-says\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">convicted<\/a> on terrorism charges back in 2011 for trying to sell tens of millions of dollars worth of missiles to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) for the purpose of shooting down U.S. Military helicopters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis should be a moment of deep reflection for the United States government to recognize we have a serious problem with hostage-taking of Americans,\u201d Menendez said in a statement. \u201cThe Russians and other regimes that take American citizens hostage cannot pretend that there is equivalence between the Brittney Griners of the world and people like Viktor Bout, the so-called \u2018Merchant of Death.\u2019 Nothing could be further from the truth, and we cannot ignore that releasing Bout back into the world is a deeply disturbing decision.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe must stop inviting dictatorial and rogue regimes to use Americans overseas as bargaining chips, and we must try to do better at encouraging American citizens against traveling to places like Russia where they are primary targets for this type of unlawful detention,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n<p>Menendez\u2019s statement mentioned U.S. Marine veteran Paul Whelan, who was not rescued by the Biden administration from his jail cell in Russia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy heart also goes out to the families of other American citizens in Russian prisons and labor camps, including Paul Whelan,\u201d the statement concluded. \u201cThey have my renewed commitment and determination to use the power of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to secure Mr. Whelan\u2019s safe return and to continue fighting for the release of all Russian political prisoners, like Vladimir Kara Murza, and all other unjustly detained Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Whelan slammed the Biden administration during a CNN interview after the announcement was made that Griner was the one who was going to be freed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am greatly disappointed that more has not been done to secure my release, especially as the four-year anniversary of my arrest is coming up. I was arrested for a crime that never occurred,\u201d Whelan <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/i-dont-understand-marine-vet-left-in-russian-prison-greatly-disappointed-after-griner-swap\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a>. \u201cI don\u2019t understand why I\u2019m still sitting here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, slammed President Joe Biden Thursday for releasing notorious terrorist Viktor Bout in exchange for Brittney Griner. Griner, who has a criminal record in the U.S. stemming from a domestic violence incident several years ago, was arrested in Russia back in February on drug charges, &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":1890643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[6852,3620,3675,6202,4552,4912,6850,6849,6851,4012,4163,6195],"class_list":["post-1768344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire","tag-deeply","tag-biden","tag-blasts","tag-daily","tag-decision","tag-democrat","tag-disturbing","tag-griner","tag-releasing","tag-senator","tag-terrorist","tag-wire"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1768344","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\/102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1768344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1768344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1890643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1768344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1768344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1768344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}