Joe Biden will not “apologize,” his spokeswoman said: The prisoner exchange between basketball star Brittney Griner and notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout was a hot topic of discussion in the United States on Thursday, AFP reports.

White House spokeswoman Karin Jean-Pierre was peppered with questions during the daily briefing about whether the US president made a “bad deal” as the Republican opposition claims.

She said the 80-year-old Democrat did not take the decision “lightly” and remains “vigilant” after the release of what has been called a “merchant of death”.

Biden will not apologize

Acknowledging that the prisoner swap could have been “immediately perceived as unfair or arbitrary,” she explained, “The president (Biden) felt he had a moral obligation. (…) Either Britney or nobody. And we won’t apologize for it.”

“I sincerely believe that Victor Booth has spent enough time in prison for the crimes he committed,” sentencing judge Shira Sheinlin told AFP. He was arrested in Thailand in 2008 and sentenced to 25 years in prison in the United States, of which he served about half.

“He was not a terrorist himself. He was an arms dealer. Arms dealers are everywhere, including the US and France,” she added.

Trump goes on the attack / Has Paul Whelan been abandoned?

That’s not the view of many GOP leaders, starting with former President Donald Trump, who took to his social network Truth to denounce the “one-sided deal” as “stupid” and “disgraceful.”

Others, such as Republican Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis, said the deal did not resolve the fate of another American held in Russia for four years, ex-serviceman Paul Whelan.

The head of US diplomacy, Anthony Blinken, said that Russia wanted to treat the two cases differently because of the “false espionage allegations” that Moscow is making against Paul Whelan.

Another reason, according to Judge Shira Scheindlin, to also demand his release: “I don’t know if he did what (the Russians) say he did, but if he really was a spy, then you’d have a spy. against an arms dealer, which seems somewhat more relevant,” she said.

“Position of Strength”

For Will Pomerantz, director of the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center, the case of a former American soldier sentenced in 2020 to 16 years in prison will now be difficult to solve: his “best chance” to leave Russia “was to be part of the exchange of Brittney Griner”, whose the case caused a strong mobilization, especially in the world of women’s basketball.