Former President claimed on Sunday he turned down a deal that would have freed a former Marine in exchange for a notorious Russian arms dealer.
The ex-president took to his social media platform, Truth Social, over the weekend to slam his successor’s decision to .
Trump said he denied a deal that would have freed Bout — who has been dubbed the Merchant of Death due to his weapons deals with a Columbian drug cartel and terror groups — in exchange for Paul Whelan, a former US Marine who is serving over a decade in a gulag on espionage charges American officials say are bogus.
Still, Trump insists he would have been able to get Whelan out of his prison sentence, and denied that Griner would have ever been arrested in Russia for smuggling marijuana pens into the country.
His comments, though, come as the Biden administration stresses it is working with its counterparts in the Kremlin to free Whelan, with National Security Council spokesman John Kirby saying the administration is .
(Daily Mail)
