“What kind of a deal is it to swap Brittney Griner, a basketball player who openly hates our Country, for the man known as ‘The Merchant of Death,’ who is one of the biggest arms dealers anywhere in the World, and responsible for tens of thousands of deaths and horrific injuries. Why wasn’t former Marine Paul Whelan included in this totally one-sided transaction? He would have been let out for the asking. What a ‘stupid’ and unpatriotic embarrassment for the USA!!!”
Hmm, well if he could have been let out for the asking, it’s pretty weird that Trump ostensibly never asked. After all, Whelan was apprehended in Russia in 2018, when Donald Trump was still pretending to be president.
And guess what! Whelan’s family has noticed. Whelan’s twin brother, David, is calling Trump out for suddenly advocating for Paul after he can no longer do anything about it.
For the nontweeters:
Former President Trump appears to have mentioned my brother #PaulWhelan‘s wrongful detention more in the last 24 hours than he did in the 2 years of his presidency in which Paul was held hostage by #Russia (zero). I don’t suggest he cares now any more than he did then (zero)
And then there was Whelan’s sister, Elizabeth. According to a November 2019 story in The Atlantic, Elizabeth Whelan got exactly nowhere when she tried to get the Trump White House to pay more attention to her brother’s case. So imagine how she must feel when she hears the phlegmatic fuck who was president when he was captured say he could have been released with a single phone call.
She’s made some inroads on Capitol Hill, where last month the House passed a resolution calling on Russia to present “credible evidence” against Paul, or release him from prison. But overall, she’s found high- and low-ranking officials alike to be skittish on the topic. “I would say we have a Russia problem, in the sense that a lot of people don’t want to engage with any subject matter that has the word Russia involved in it,” Elizabeth told me after her meeting with Urban, which I’d sat in on. “I might as well be taking a fainting couch and smelling salts around with me.”
Admittedly, there is never a good time for an American citizen to be detained in Russia. But given the Trump administration’s complicated, unpredictable, and often deferential relationship with the Kremlin, Elizabeth struggles to imagine a worse one. Earlier this summer, Paul used a brief court appearance in Moscow to beg for President Donald Trump’s assistance in his case. “Tweet your intentions,” he pleaded from inside a glass cage. Yet the president has stayed silent. (The White House did not respond to requests for comment on this story.)
So while the Biden administration acknowledged Whelan’s predicament and vowed to keep working to bring him home, Trump apparently needed to preserve his tweety time for more important issues, like the Oscars’ dismal TV ratings.
Meanwhile, David Whelan told the Canadian Broadcasting Co. that he has nothing but positive feelings toward Griner and her family.
“Every family of a wrongful detainee feels good for another wrongful detainee coming home, to know they are back with their loved ones,” he said. “We hope that it will eventually be our day.”
We hope so, too, David. If only Donald Trump hadn’t hated America so much and been so unwilling to make deals with Russia that actually helped someone other than Donald Trump.
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.
Aldous J Pennyfarthing
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