If there was a pool for “things that are inevitable,” I would have bet my house on the “Merchant of Death” getting back into the merchant of death business. According to the Wall Street Journal, Viktor Bout, the guy who Joe Biden traded for the America-hating, admitted felon WNBA player Brittney Griner, is back in his trade of choice. He’s selling arms to terrorists.
Viktor Bout, the Russian arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death,” walked out of a U.S. jail almost two years ago in a trade with Moscow for U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner. Now he is back in business, trying to broker the sale of small arms to Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militants.
America used to be circumspect about trading prisoners with Russia (a/k/a USSR). America would only trade high-value spies for high-value Americans. We would get someone back who added value to America, and we would (reluctantly) give up a spy.
Times have changed.
Ten years ago, Barack Obama offered up five terrorists to get an Army deserter back. Bowe Bergdahl was returned to great fanfare. His parents were at the Rose Garden as Obama announced Bergdahl’s return. Those five were back in the business of Taliban terror within a few years.
Biden seems to have won top spot in the “Incompetent Prisoner Exchange” category because exchanging Griner for an international arms-dealing terror merchant isn’t just a terrible choice; it will undoubtedly end in the deaths of innocent people.
When Biden made the Griner for Bout exchange, he said:
She’s safe, she’s on a plane, she’s on her way home. After months of being unjustly detained in Russia, held under untolerable (sic) circumstances, Brittney will soon be back in the arms of her loved ones, and she should have been there all along.
Griner wasn’t “unjustly detained.” We might not like Russia or the thug who runs the country, but Griner violated Russian criminal statutes. Griner admitted that she brought drugs into Russia. Griner is an admitted criminal. Griner pled guilty.
Griner was exchanged because she checked the boxes. She’s gay. She’s black. And she refused to stand for the national anthem.