{"id":1789409,"date":"2022-12-29T08:13:32","date_gmt":"2022-12-29T13:13:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1789409"},"modified":"2022-12-29T08:19:16","modified_gmt":"2022-12-29T13:19:16","slug":"biden-admin-marks-anniversary-of-paul-whelans-detention-in-russia-after-feeing-wnba-player-over-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-admin-marks-anniversary-of-paul-whelans-detention-in-russia-after-feeing-wnba-player-over-him\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden Admin Marks Anniversary of Paul Whelan\u2019s Detention in Russia After Feeing WNBA Player Over Him"},"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\">32<\/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%2Fbiden-admin-marks-anniversary-of-paul-whelans-detention-in-russia-after-feeing-wnba-player-over-him%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=1789409&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>WASHINGTON\u2014The Biden administration is marking the four-year anniversary of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-detention\">detention<\/a> in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-russia\">Russia<\/a> of American businessman Paul Whelan, whose continued <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-imprisonment\">imprisonment<\/a> is one of several major irritants in tattered relations between Washington and Moscow.<\/p>\n<p>Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Wednesday that securing Whelan\u2019s release remains a top administration priority.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. officials had hoped to include Whelan in a prisoner swap earlier this month in which they traded detained WNBA star Brittney Griner for a convicted Russian arms dealer, Viktor Bout. The administration considers Whelan, like Griner, to have been wrongfully detained.<\/p>\n<p>Blinken said Whelan and his family are \u201csuffering through an unfathomable ordeal\u201d and he again condemned the American\u2019s conviction, which was based on secret evidence, and 16-year prison sentence.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHis detention remains unacceptable, and we continue to press for his immediate release at every opportunity,\u201d Blinken said. \u201cOur efforts to secure Paul\u2019s release will not cease until he is back home with his family where he belongs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive, is jailed in Russia on espionage charges that his family and the U.S. government have said are baseless. U.S. officials said Russia refused to consider including Whelan in the Griner deal, calling it a \u201cone or none\u201d decision.\u00a0\u201cPaul and the Whelan family recently showed the entire country the meaning of generosity of spirit in celebrating a fellow American\u2019s return while Russia continues its deplorable treatment of Paul as a bargaining chip,\u201d said President Joe Biden\u2019s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan.<\/p>\n<p>His family supported the exchange that freed Griner, but expressed fears that Whelan would not be released for years.<\/p>\n<p>His brother, David Whelan, said when the swap was announced, \u201cI think we all realize that the math is not going to work out for Paul to come home anytime soon, unless the U.S.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON\u2014The Biden administration is marking the four-year anniversary of the detention in Russia of American businessman Paul Whelan, whose continued imprisonment is one of several major irritants in tattered relations between Washington and Moscow. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Wednesday that securing Whelan\u2019s release remains a top administration priority. U.S. officials &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1703841,"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":[547],"tags":[4496,4143,3620,5458,5485,12319,8698,5531,4016,3819,4280,12318,7188],"class_list":["post-1789409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report","tag-admin","tag-anniversary","tag-biden","tag-bongino","tag-detention","tag-feeing","tag-marks","tag-paul","tag-player","tag-report","tag-russia","tag-whelans","tag-wnba"],"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\/1789409","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1789409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1789409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1703841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1789409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1789409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1789409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}