Russia Is Trying To Make The Brittany Griner Deal A True One Sided Exchange joe August 1, 2022 Uncategorized It looks like Biden’s lists of exchanges just get bigger, should the WH consider a school teacher over a basketball player? It looks like Biden needs to release more dangerous criminals to get this deal done, otherwise he might end up with a ‘no deal’ answer from Russia. Now, following the reports of the exchange deal with Russia, the family of the educator imprisoned in Russia said he feels “hurt” to be overlooked as the Biden administration works to bring Brittney Griner home, arguing that educators “are at least as important” as basketball players. They want Fogel to be added to the United States proposed prisoner exchange deal with the Kremlin to bring back the basketball star. 61-year-old Marc Hilliard Fogel was arrested last August at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport for trying to enter the country with about 20 grams of medical marijuana. The school teacher worries about his own fate after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealed that the US made a “substantial proposal” to bring home Griner and ex-Marine Paul Whelan. According to The Washington Post, Fogel had worked as a teacher at a school in Moscow for nearly ten years when he was stopped at an airport upon his return to Russia. He was in possession at the time of medical marijuana that his doctor recommended he take for “severe chronic pain” that was caused by years of spinal injuries and resulting surgeries. “He’d packed 14 vape cartridges of medical marijuana into his suitcase, stuffing some in his shoes, and placed some cannabis buds in a contact lens case, his wife said,” according to the Post. “It’s pretty simple,” his son Ethan told the newspaper. “He thought he could get away with it.” After being detained in poor conditions, the Pennsylvania man was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment in June, according to the Post. An attorney assisting Fogel’s family with his case told Fox News Digital in an email that Fogel “fully cooperated with the investigation and prosecution; submitted substantial proof of prior medical treatment, of debilitating health conditions, and of his doctor’s recommendation for medical marijuana.” More details of this report from The Western Journal: Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine the next week, U.S. officials feared that Moscow could use the basketballer as a high-profile hostage. The U.S. began working on a prisoner exchange deal that would ensure she would return to the country. On Thursday, CNN reported that the U.S. was willing to offer Russia convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout in exchange for Russia releasing Grimes and 52-year-old corporate security director and ex-policeman Paul Whelan, who was arrested in 2018 on espionage charges. According to another report from CNN, Russian government officials wanted the U.S. to include Vadim Krasikov, an assassin for the Russian state security agency known as FSB, in the prisoner exchange. The Fogel family hoped that Fogel would be included in the agreement when they heard the U.S. was negotiating a prisoner exchange with Moscow. That Fogel was not included came as a disappointment, according to Fox News. “[It] was heart-wrenching, hearing he wasn’t included,” Fogel’s sister, Anne Fogel-Burchenal, told Fox News. “Our strategy was to play it low-key and cool through his sentencing, because that was what we thought was the right thing to do. But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe we should’ve been screaming and hollering all along,” Fogel-Burchenal added. The family is now actively speaking out for the Biden administration to include Fogel in the prisoner exchange deal with Russia. “We are going to yell as loudly as we can and continue to until he gets home,” Fogel-Burchenal said. “We aren’t going to let it rest.” According to Fox News, the family wants the State Department to classify Fogel as “wrongfully detained,” just as Griner was in May, according to The New York Times. Such a designation would “commit additional US government resources to securing his release and move to the jurisdiction of the US government’s Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs,” the family’s attorney told Fox. “We are pleading with the Biden administration to classify him as wrongfully detained,” Fogel’s niece Ellen Keelan said, according to Fox News. “Remember this is a real person – a husband and father and an amazing teacher – and we can’t let this be the end of his story.” President Trump slammed Biden’s latest trade, saying that the proposed prisoner swap between Russia and the United States that would return jailed WNBA star Brittney Griner in exchange for a Russian arms dealer doesn’t seem like a very good trade. “She knew you don’t go in there loaded up with drugs, and she admitted it”, Trump told the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show. “I assume she admitted it without too much force because it is what it is, and it certainly doesn’t seem like a very good trade, does it? He’s absolutely one of the worst in the world, and he’s gonna be given his freedom because a potentially spoiled person goes into Russia loaded up with drugs.” Sources: WesternJournal, The Washington Post, Fox News, CNN, The New York Times Leave a Reply Cancel ReplyYour email address will not be published.CommentName* Email* Website Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ