Former president Donald Trump and his allies have raged against President Joe Biden’s administration after US officials secured the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner from Russian authorities in a prison exchange for convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout.
The former president and other Republican officials have derided the exchange, accusing the Biden administration of neglecting the case of Paul Whelan, a former US Marine who has been detained in Russia since 2018 on accusations of espionage, charges that he has denied.
But former White House national security officials under the Trump administration, as well as the brother of Mr Whelan, have said that the former president was not interested in the case when he was in office.
His brother David Whelan told MSNBC on Saturday that the former president was not “prepared to” or “interested in” working toward his brother’s release.
“I think the first two years, partly I think the Trump administration was not prepared to or not interested in working on wrongful detention cases,” he said.
Former Trump-era White House national security adviser Fiona Hill also said her former boss “wasn’t especially interested in engaging” in the exchange.
“He was not particularly interested in Paul’s case in the way that one would have thought he would be,” she told CBS Face the Nation on Sunday.
Last week, former national security adviser John Bolton told CBS that the Trump administration considered the “possibility” of a “Bout-for-Whelan trade” had “existed back then and it wasn’t made, for very good reasons having to deal with Viktor Bout”.
Mr Whelan, now 52, was working as a director of global security and investigations for BorgWarner and repeatedly traveled to Russia on business. At the time of his arrest, he was attending a friend’s wedding. In 2020, he was convicted to 16 years in prison.
In June 2019, roughly six months after Mr Whelan’s arrest, Mr Bolton met with Mr Whelan’s sister Elizabeth Whelan. He later wrote on Twitter that the meeting had been “productive” and said Russia “produced no evidence” of Mr Whelan’s alleged wrongdoing.
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told ABC’s This Week on Sunday said the Biden administration made a “very serious, specific proposal” for Mr Whelan and Ms Griner to be released together, but “it just didn’t land anywhere ... with the Russians”.
“As we progressed [with negotiations] through this summer and into the fall ... it was clear that they were treating Paul very separately, very distinctly because of these sham espionage charges they levied against him,” he added.
Mr Kirby said it became increasingly clear last week that Mr Whelan’s release alongside Ms Griner would be unlikely.
“It really occurred to us that there was just no chance of doing it last week,” he said. “We had been trying all the way up until the moment we actually secured the deal that got Brittney home, we were still trying to get Paul out.”
Despite his own apparent refusal to engage Russian authorities or members of his administration for Mr Whelan’s release after that 2019 meeting, the former president called the exchange a “totally one-sided transaction” and a “stupid and “unpatriotic embarrassment” to the country.
Donald Trump Jr also accused the Biden administration of refusing to free Mr Whelan from Russian custody because he didn’t “check off enough ‘woke’ boxes, probably”.
“We didn’t get back the American hero. We got Brittney Griner, who hates America, because she checks off a bunch of boxes,” he said. “There’s a level of arrogance that probably Brittney Griner had going into Russia thinking she should get away from these things. Because in America, as a female, celebrity, minority, lesbian – she probably felt and probably could actually be above the law.”
Ms Hill said Russians repeatedly raised the possibility of Bout’s release during her time in the Trump administration and made it “very clear that they had every intent of trying to swap Americans that have been wrongfully detained for individuals in United States custody who were there for pretty good reasons.”
The deal to exchange Bout ultimately was dissolved for several reasons, including “the absurdity of the Russians asking for the release of a notorious arms dealer” but also Mr Trump’s lack of interest in the case.
Preet Bharara, former US attorney for the Southern District of New York, who prosecuted Bout’s case, said he was willing to give the Biden administration the benefit of the doubt over questions about its decision to release Bout to Russian authorities.
“I think people of good faith can, in good faith, ask questions and be concerned about it, even when we’re very, very happy that Brittney Griner is back in the US,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.
“He was convicted of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists,” he said. “He was a dangerous man then. I don’t know how dangerous he is now.”
