WNBA player Brittney Griner will be home for the holidays after President Joe Biden‘s administration struck a deal with Russia to secure her release after roughly nine months in custody on minor drug charges.
Biden bemoaned the unjust nature of Griner’s detention under “intolerable” conditions in a White House Roosevelt Room address, contending she has lost months of her life because of the ordeal.
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“Britney will soon be back in the arms of her loved ones, and she should have been there all along,” the president said Thursday. “This is a day we’ve worked toward for a long time.”
Biden insisted he and his aides have “not forgotten about Paul Whelan,” a former U.S. Marine who remains in Russia. He was adamant the Griner framework was not a “choice” between her and Whelan.
Griner, of the Phoenix Mercury, was freed from Russian custody in a one-for-one prisoner swap with Viktor Bout, a convicted Russian arms dealer who had been held in Illinois. The exchange occurred Thursday in the United Arab Emirates after Biden agreed to the arrangement, which included shortening Bout’s 25-year federal prison sentence, within the last week.
Biden spoke with Griner Thursday from the Oval Office with Vice President Kamala Harris and Griner’s wife, Cherelle.
“She is safe. She is on a plane. She is on her way home,” Biden tweeted, including photographs of the trio talking on the phone with the center.
Moments ago I spoke to Brittney Griner.
She is safe.
She is on a plane.
She is on her way home. pic.twitter.com/FmHgfzrcDT— President Biden (@POTUS) December 8, 2022
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Griner was detained at a Moscow airport in February after customs officers found cannabis oil vaping cartridges in her luggage. She was found guilty of drug smuggling this summer and was sentenced to more than nine years in a penal colony.
