A dumb trade?

As with all trades, you have to dig a little deeper into the terms of contract than just the surface optics of basketball player for merchant of death.

The merchant of death has been incarcerated for 14 years and was due for release from prison in less than 7 years. While he was convicted of attempting to sell arms to kill Americans (because that is the DEA drug cartel sting they caught him in), he was an equal opportunity merchant who started out selling weapons to the Russians to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan. If being an international arms seller is criminal per se, there are a lot of American multi-national corporate CEOs who should be in prison. But the more relevant piece is he has served the majority of his sentence and how many contacts he has left in a very volatile arms marketplace is questionable at best after 14 years in prison.

OTOH the basketball star was arrested for having some cannabis oil in her luggage, for which she had a medical prescription and which is legal in a majority of the U.S. And she had her full sentence still in front of her, having just lost her appeal.

Now for the third piece in the puzzle: Paul Whelan, the ex-Marine who is in his 5th year of captivity and whom the Russians refused to include in the trade. Again the optics: he always is referred to as the former Marine, which conjures up this squeaky clean image. Facts: he is a former Marine because he got a bad conduct discharge after being court-martialed for multiple acts of larceny and other charges; none of his self-proclaimed past employment history in law-enforcement nor college education fully checks out.
But he has worked in cyber security for a couple of multi-nationals, lived and worked in Russia for years; and was arrested with a USB drive with Russian secrets on it that had just been handed to him by a Russian secret service officer after mysteriously leaving a wedding a ceremony that he had organized. Wonder why the Russians consider him a spy, despite the CIA's denial? He also is Canadian-born, and holds passports from 4 countries (Britain & Ireland in addition to the U.S. & Canada) , all of which say they are working for his release. For his sake, I hope someone finds the key for his release, but if it is so easy to get the Russians to give up someone they see -- rightly or wrongly -- as a spy caught in a sting operation, let's at least spread the blame for failure to all four countries whose flag he was traveling under.

Let’s play the imagine if orange man bad swapped a activist for a gun runner named ‘The merchant of death’
And the medias and dems reaction game

Let’s see, biggest arms dealer in history for a basketball player….USA comes up short on this deal

Absolutely, but that’s what you get when you have a weak old fool calling the shots!!!!

I became a Republican today

Smart trade from an effective president. Using an "asset" to free a citizen. Have pity for the Russian who after the novelty of reuniting with his family gets to be reindoctrinated into the hell hole of what has become of Russian society.

Russia wins again

I'm glad she's coming home but it was a very bad trade. Donals Trump retrived 56 prisoners from oerseas and gave up nothing.

This is obviously an example of orange man being putins puppet again…

Im glad she's out but did they have to send them an arms dealer? Good grief

Yes. We should have traded her for Trump. That fat fuck would be happier in Russia

Biden has been on his gun control soap box lately. Promised to ban scary guns. Says no citizen should own a semi-automatic firearms, even though he's surrounded by security armed to the teeth with them. And so he releases an arm dealer known as "the Merchant of Death." 🙄

Yes, without a doubt.

Well, pretty uneven in regard to the crimes they were convicted of, but with all the public pressure and social media hoopla, there didn't seem to be much choice.

The Biden administration has, from day one, had all their priorities screwed up.

I’m confused, I thought the US had labelled Russian activity in Ukraine as terrorist and that the US does not negotiate with terrorists.

So the US wants Whelan and Griner for Bout...but....Russia says no...we give you only Griner or no one. So US takes deal....you take what you can! Someone is better than no one!!!!

100B in arms to Ukraine.
A prolific arms dealer to Russia.

We ain’t been played at all huh?

🍿

he IS a Death merchant.
but I am glad she will not rot over there

And Trumps a genius

see i would trade the terrorist for her, but before i give him back I would have done some serious deep surgical implantations on him...so i would know where he is and what he's up to.

does everyone remember when Whelan was taken, and who was POTUS?

we will tell in time.

She's got legs and he's got arms. 🤷🏻‍♂️ seems legit

I understand it, at the same time, bring them home

Yes, very dumb, but biden is a very dumb president, so there ya go