Welcome Home, Brittney Griner! | Diane Ravitch’s blog

I was thrilled when I heard the information that Brittney Griner was being launched and thrilled currently to master that she experienced landed in San Antonio, in which she will have a complete professional medical examination.

I naively assumed that every person would be thrilled that this young woman was introduced, but soon understood that that was not the scenario.

Republicans speedily seized on her exchange–release of Brittney in a trade for Viktor Bout, notorious arms vendor known as the “Merchant of Death”–to say that Biden had committed a terrible sin. He obtained a mere basketball participant in return for a risky felony who experienced unfold arms during the planet to terrorize and eliminate men and women, like Us citizens. Republican politicians squandered no time denouncing the deal on Twitter as a display of Biden’s naivete and incompetence. He still left a Maritime driving enemy strains, crowed Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn. Trump denounced the deal as “stupid” and “unpatriotic.” He assumed that Biden simply just forgot about Paul Whelan, who has served four yrs behind bars in Russia for alleged espionage.

But that was not genuine. Biden has been in get hold of with the Whelan relatives. Whelan’s brother built very clear that he agreed with Biden.

The stories from inside the Biden administration make apparent that Putin was unwilling to make a 2-for-1 trade. He available to release Griner in trade for Bout. The deal was 1-for-1. Only Griner was on offer, not Whelan.

Putin had leverage: he was keeping three Individuals in Russia’s grim jail process: Griner, Whelan, and an American instructor named Marc Vogel, aged 60, who has been imprisoned for far more than a 12 months for possession of clinical cannabis on moving into the region. Vogel and his spouse were instructors at the Anglo-American University in Moscow, a dear private school for the elite. The Russian negotiators were very clear: only one American would be launched, and it would be Griner.

Biden’s selection: Trade Bout for Griner or no offer at all.

He selected to give up Bout in return for bringing Griner household.

From the vitriol being thrown at Biden by Republicans, I presume they would prefer to have built no deal at all. They would have let Griner serve out her 9-12 months sentence or hold out until eventually Putin was well prepared to launch Griner, Whelan, and Vogel. Some GOPers say on Twitter that the only motive she was chosen by Biden (Biden did not make the preference) is that she is lesbian and homosexual. Absurd.

What would you have done?

I, for 1, welcome Brittney Griner dwelling.