A Friday report in the Washington Post noted U.S. Department of Justice officials viewed President Joe Biden’s prisoner exchange of weed-smuggler WNBA player Brittney Griner for terrorist Viktor Bout as a “mistake.”
“But the president also faced opposition from his own Justice Department, which viewed Thursday’s one-for-one prisoner swap involving Griner and the notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout as a mistake given the discrepancy of offenses by the two prisoners.”
The piece quoted an anonymous DOJ official, who said of Griner’s release, “If she were my relative, I would want to do the swap. But trading a notorious international arms dealer for a basketball player is madness.”
