by Jordan Schachtel at The Dossier
The Biden Administration is in full damage control mode after making perhaps the worst trade in history, exchanging a WNBA star for a notorious Russian international warlord, while leaving behind a former U.S. service member in the process. Below is a detailed timeline that shows the events leading up to Thursday’s prisoner exchang.
December 2018: Former U.S. service member Paul Whelan is arrested in Russia on charges of espionage. U.S. denies he is a spy. There is no indication that the Russians placed any offer on the table until his sentencing.
June 2020: Whelan is sentenced to 16 years in prison.
June 2020: At around the same time, the Kremlin approaches the Trump Administration to attempt to make a deal. They first offer Whelan up for Viktor Bout and Konstantin Yaroshenko, according to Russia’s Interfax. Bout, the notorious “merchant of death,” was convicted in 2011 of conspiracy to kill Americans. Yaroshenko, a lower priority drug trafficker, was sentenced in 2011 to 20 years in prison for conspiring to import more than US$100 million worth of cocaine…
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