Brittney Griner at a Texas medical facility as the political fallout over the barter continues | Brittney Griner

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Brittney Griner, an American basketball star who was released after nearly 10 months of detention in Russia in a prisoner exchange deal with notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout, is undergoing a physical and mental evaluation at an Army facility in Texas as part of her US rehabilitation. .

The two-time Olympic gold medalist is being questioned at Brock Army Medical Center in San Antonio. She returned to the US on Friday morning and was immediately taken to what were described as “intensive health assessments”.

John Kirby, the national security council’s strategic communications coordinator, told This Week on ABC News Sunday that initial indications are that Griner has been doing well. “She is in very good spirits and in good health,” he said.

As the WNBA and Olympic champion gradually returned to American society, the political fallout from the high-profile prisoner exchange with Bute continued. So has the ongoing plight of other Americans held by Russia not included in the Kremlin deal, notably Marine Paul Whelan who is serving nearly four years of a 16-year sentence for alleged espionage.

Joe Biden’s special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, Roger Carstens, said negotiations over Whelan were still ongoing. “We have an ongoing open dialogue with the Russians and we have a commitment from the President, and certainly from my office, to bringing Paul Whelan home,” he told CNN on the State of the Union.

Carstens described speaking with Whelan in a Russian prison the day after the exchange was announced securing Graner’s release and assuring him that the US government was committed to bringing him home. He said he urged Whelan to “keep the faith – we’re coming to get you”.

The White House responded to criticism that they should have secured the release of both Griner and Whelan in exchange for a prominent arms dealer by insisting that a two-for-one deal was never on the table. A specific proposal to get both people out had been made to the Russians, Carstens said, but it “landed nowhere”.

He added: “It was clear that they were treating Paul very detached because of the bogus espionage charges they had brought against him.”

The Biden administration also continues to come under fire from Republican pundits and others for releasing a notorious arms dealer. Bot, nicknamed “Death Dealer”, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for conspiring to kill Americans and selling weapons to FARC rebels.

New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez and Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee denounced Bott’s release as “deeply troubling.” He said that would encourage tyrants to take hostages.

“We must stop inviting dictatorships and rogue regimes to use Americans abroad as bargaining chips,” he said.

Senior Republicans are using similar arguments to attack Biden. Donald Trump’s former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, told Fox News on Sunday that Vladimir Putin and other hostile regimes including Iran would be emboldened.

He said, “Trading punks up for celebrities creates the wrong incentives for punks.”

In his interview with CNN, Carstens acknowledged that the decision to make a deal with Russia was difficult. “It’s hard to stop these dictators and dictatorial governments from taking Americans and trying to use them as bargaining chips,” he said, adding that Biden has imposed new sanctions on people taking hostages abroad that he promised to implement soon.

Carstens also provided new details of how he met Grenier as part of a prisoner exchange in Abu Dhabi, and then accompanied her to the United States. On the 18-hour flight, she spent about 12 hours just talking, including about her Russian ordeal.

“I got the impression that this is an intelligent, compassionate, compassionate, modest and interesting person – a patriot,” said the envoy.

Greiner was sentenced to 9.5 years in prison after she was arrested at an airport in Russia and accused of carrying cannabis oil cans inside her. The basketball star said she made a packaging mistake and provided evidence for her prescription of cannabis as a pain medication.

Bot told RT TV, the Russian state-run network, that he exchanged words with Greiner on the tarmac in Abu Dhabi. According to a report in the Washington Post, he said, “I wished her well, and she even extended her hand.”

RT asked about Butt if Griner ever dealt with him. “Yeah she did, and I felt like she was very positive about me,” he said.

The claim cannot be independently verified. Greiner has not commented, and the edited video released by Russian state media appears to have been cut at the exact moment any direct confrontation between the two individuals would have taken place.

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