{"id":1771316,"date":"2022-12-10T20:18:16","date_gmt":"2022-12-11T01:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1771316"},"modified":"2022-12-10T20:18:17","modified_gmt":"2022-12-11T01:18:17","slug":"madness-even-biden-doj-officials-calling-foul-on-griner-swap-for-merchant-of-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/madness-even-biden-doj-officials-calling-foul-on-griner-swap-for-merchant-of-death\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Madness\u2019: Even Biden DOJ Officials Calling Foul On Griner Swap For \u2018Merchant Of Death\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\">28<\/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%2Fmadness-even-biden-doj-officials-calling-foul-on-griner-swap-for-merchant-of-death%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=1771316&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>Officials at the Department of Justice (DOJ) think it was a mistake for President Joe Biden to swap WNBA star <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/wnba-star-brittney-griner-freed-from-russian-prison-in-swap-for-arms-dealer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Brittney Griner<\/a>\u00a0for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, dubbed the \u201cMerchant of Death.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Griner was arrested in February at a Moscow airport after being caught with marijuana vaping materials and sentenced to nine years in prison in August. Bout, one of the world\u2019s most notorious arms dealers, was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/international-arms-dealer-viktor-bout-convicted-new-york-terrorism-crimes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">convicted<\/a> in 2011 of conspiring to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons to a designated foreign terrorist group to be used to kill Americans.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf she were my relative, I would want to do the swap,\u201d one DOJ official <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/national-security\/2022\/12\/09\/brittney-griner-viktor-bout-paul-whelan\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">told<\/a> The Washington Post. \u201cBut trading a notorious international arms dealer for a basketball player is madness.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Post said many officials within the department view the one-for-one swap as a mistake, given the glaring disparity between offenses.<\/p>\n<p>Former DEA agent Robert Zachariasiewicz told the Post he was opposed to the move over what it likely reinforces to Russia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe just showed that it is really useful to have an American in your back pocket because you never know when you need them to trade,\u201d Zachariasiewicz said.<\/p>\n<p>At the time of his conviction, then-Attorney General Eric Holder called Bout \u201cone of the world\u2019s most prolific arms dealers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cViktor Bout\u2019s arms trafficking activity and support of armed conflicts have been a source of concern around the globe for decades,\u201d the Obama administration AG said, adding that Bout would pay for his \u201cefforts to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons to terrorists for use in killing Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Biden administration took additional heat for the Griner swap since they failed\u00a0to secure the release of Paul Whelan, a retired U.S. Marine jailed in Russia since December 2018 on espionage charges that the U.S. government said are baseless.<\/p>\n<p>David Whelan, brother of the imprisoned Michigan man, said in a statement that he \u201ccan\u2019t fathom\u201d how his brother would feel upon hearing the news of Griner\u2019s release.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDespite the possibility that there might be an exchange without Paul, our family is still devastated,\u201d David said, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/wnba-star-brittney-griner-freed-from-russian-prison-in-swap-for-arms-dealer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Daily Wire<\/a> reported. \u201cI can\u2019t even fathom how Paul will feel when he learns. Paul has worked so hard to survive nearly 4 years of this injustice. His hopes had soared with the knowledge that the US government was taking concrete steps for once towards his release. He\u2019d been worrying about where he\u2019d live when he got back to the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/hell-nah-dallas-cowboy-has-strong-reaction-to-brittney-griner-swap\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u2018Hell Nah\u2019: Dallas Cowboy Has Strong Reaction To Brittney Griner Swap, Walks It\u00a0Back<\/p>\n<p><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Officials at the Department of Justice (DOJ) think it was a mistake for President Joe Biden to swap WNBA star Brittney Griner\u00a0for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, dubbed the \u201cMerchant of Death.\u201d Griner was arrested in February at a Moscow airport after being caught with marijuana vaping materials and sentenced to nine years in prison &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":1890707,"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":[7699,7187,3620,4206,6202,6499,7076,5899,6849,3638,7359,6195],"class_list":["post-1771316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire","tag-madness","tag-merchant","tag-biden","tag-calling","tag-daily","tag-death","tag-doj","tag-foul","tag-griner","tag-officials","tag-swap","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\/1771316","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\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1771316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1890707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1771316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1771316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1771316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}