(ReclaimingAmerica.net) – Republican US Senator Tom Cotton has slammed President Joe Biden’s prisoner exchange with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, under which America freed infamous arms smuggler Viktor Bout in exchange for WNBA player Brittney Griner.
The Arkansas US Senator warned that many people would be killed because rogue regimes would see Bout’s release as a blank check to arrest American nationals and extort the United States.
Biden announced the Griner-Bout exchange on Thursday before Russia’s Foreign Ministry confirmed it.
“As a result of the efforts made, we managed to agree with the American side to arrange an exchange of Viktor Bout for Brittney Griner. The Russian citizen has been returned to his homeland,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
“I think [a lot of people] will [die] because, again, Viktor Bout is known as the merchant of death for a reason,” Sen. Cotton told Breitbart News when asked about the ramifications of Biden’s exchange.
“It’s not like he’s going to retire to the Black Sea and peacefully live out his golden years in quiet retirement. [Russian leader] Vladimir Putin wanted him out for a reason,” the Republican added.
The Arkansas Senator forecasted that American citizens around the globe would be increasingly targeted for arrests, abductions, and assassinations.
“I also think that more Americans will be detained, in some cases unjustly detained, in the future because they realize that Joe Biden – at least as long as he is president – will give away the farm in return for any American citizen,” Cotton said.
He decried the Biden administration’s failure to secure the release of Paul Whelan, the former US Marine, four years into a 16-year “espionage” sentence in Russia. Earlier reports on the possible prisoner exchange claimed that Griner and Whelan would be exchanged for arms smuggler Viktor Bout.
Cotton wondered why Whelan’s release had not been a priority for the Biden administration, considering his “totally unjustified imprisonment,” which began in 2018.
The Republican US Senator also slammed Biden for appeasing Putin by releasing a man who spent decades supplying weapons to terrorists such as the Taliban in Afghanistan and FARC in Colombia.
“What does Joe Biden think is going to happen now?” Cotton asked.
“Every time someone wants to get their arms traffickers or their drug dealers out of American prison, all they have to do is arrest an American on some trivial charge and sentence them to nine years, and Joe Biden is going to come running with the keys to the prison to release people who are justifiably in prison,” the Arkansas Senator stated.
Sen. @TomCottonAR predicted that President Joe Biden’s decision to trade imprisoned basketball player Brittney Griner for notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, known as the “merchant of death,” would result in people dying. https://t.co/kyBIvsbKpV
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) December 8, 2022
