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Brittney Griner Released from Russian Detention. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired December 08, 2022 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:00:00]

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: We get so mad and let go each other's hands. You grab hold of each other and look what happens.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And her life will never be the same again.

JONES: And, by the way, if she ever touches another basketball on the court, the whole world will watch. And that will transform women's sports.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Van, thank you. Glad you were here with us.

COLLINS: Such important perspective on such big news.

CNN's special coverage of this monumental moment, the release of Brittney Griner, who's now on her way back to the United States, continues right now.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR AND U.S. CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Good morning. I'm Erica Hill.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: And I'm Jim Sciutto. We are following major breaking news this morning and it's good news. Brittney Griner is on her way home.

The WNBA star, imprisoned in Russia, has been released this morning in a prisoner exchange for a convicted arms dealer, Viktor Bout. President Biden spoke moments ago at the White House.

Our team following all these developments this morning.

Erica, the president saying that Griner lost months of her life and suffered needless trauma.

Let's first go to CNN senior White House correspondent MJ Lee.

President Biden flanked by Vice President Harris and Brittney Griner's partner.

Did he have anything to say about Paul Whelan? MJ LEE, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think momentous is the right word to describe what we saw this morning. The president, first and foremost, celebrating this news with Brittney Griner's wife, Cherelle, saying that the last couple of months have been hell for Brittney Griner.

And now she's able to come back home and be reunited with her family. It was notable that so much of this speech he gave this morning had to do with addressing Paul Whelan, who was not a part of this deal. I want to play a little sound of him discussing Whelan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We never forgot about Brittney. We've not forgotten about Paul Whelan, who has been unjustly detained in Russia for years.

This was not a choice of which American to bring home. We brought home Trevor Reed when we had a chance earlier this year. Sadly, for totally illegitimate reasons, Russia is treating Paul's case differently than Brittney's.

And while we have not yet succeeded in securing Paul's release, we are not giving up. We will never give up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: Jim, I want to walk you through what we know so far about why Paul Whelan didn't end up being part of this deal that was announced this morning.

A U.S. official telling me that, of course, the U.S. has been trying for months to make sure Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan were both part of this deal. This is a deal they have been pushing for and put on the table to the Russians.

More recently, the Russians simply made clear they were only going to get Brittney Griner, that Griner was the only person that could be a part of these negotiations and essentially the reason had to do with the fact that they simply saw the two people and the two cases as being separate because they were accused of two different things.

Even though the U.S. continued to push for Whelan to be part of this deal, there came a point where administration officials had to make a decision and ultimately accept that they were not going to get Paul Whelan.

I was told by this official that it was a choice to get Brittney or nothing and that ultimately this was a difficult decision for the president. But it was one that he thought was ultimately the right one to make.

A separate senior administration official told me this morning this was the only deal we could make right now. So again, I think there were two tones that we heard from the president this morning. We'll continue to hear from other officials, one of real celebration

that, again, Brittney Griner, after so many months, will be returning to the States but also the recognition that Paul Whelan is still there and still not free.

And this is something that they are going to have to continue to work on because now we know Viktor Bout wasn't enough to get Paul Whelan out.

HILL: We want to bring in Kylie Atwood at the State Department.

As we talk more, our entire team, as we see who is with us, what more do we know about how it all played out?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: I think it's important to take a step back here and take a look at how many months in the making any kind of deal or prisoner swap like the one we're seeing today actually took for U.S. officials. There was a deal on the table that included Viktor Bout.

[09:05:00]

ATWOOD: He is the infamous trafficker of arms, serving a 25-year prison sentence here in the United States. Then the United States went back and forth with Russia. Russia wasn't amenable to the offers that the United States was putting on the table.

They were asking for things that U.S. officials said the United States was simply incapable of delivering on. Clearly, during the course of the last few months, it became clear that, as President Biden said, this wasn't a choice.

Russia was only willing to offer up a deal that included Brittney Griner and not Paul Whelan. We're waiting to hear when that actually changed. U.S. officials had been repeatedly saying that their offer was for both of these Americans to be released.

It's also important to note that the secretary of state put out a statement today, thanking the entire State Department team who had been working on this. We know the intelligence community was working on this deal.

But Roger Carstens, the special representative for hostage affairs at the State Department, according to Blinken, is now with Brittney Griner. Of course, they're headed home.

I think it's important to note that what Paul Whelan's brother said on CNN earlier is that this was the right decision for the Biden administration to make. He welcomed the fact that Brittney Griner is coming home.

The real question here is how Paul Whelan will now be able to get home?

He said in his statement that it's clear that the United States doesn't now have any concessions to offer Russia because we know Russia really wanted Viktor Bout.

So he's questioning what else could they offer up to get Paul Whelan home?

SCIUTTO: Honorable comments from the Whelan family. They're happy for the Griner family but devastating news that Paul Whelan is not included there. Kylie Atwood, thanks so much.

Abby Phillip is here with me.

Abby, you've interviewed Griner's wife, Cherelle, before. I imagine this is a happy day for her.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think, even up until the last moment, there was a sense of hope, optimism but holding of the breath until it happened. She got to that podium after President Biden spoke this morning and let out a huge sigh of relief.

This has been, for her, as she said, the darkest time of her life. This is a young couple that's been through quite a lot together. I think we have a little bit of what she said from the podium. Let's play it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHERELLE GRINER, BRITTNEY'S WIFE: Today my family is whole. But as you all are aware, there are so many other families who are not whole. And so B.G. is not here to say this.

But I will gladly speak on her behalf and say that B.G. and I will remain committed to the work of getting every American home, including Paul, whose family is in our hearts today as we celebrate B.G. being home.

We do understand that there are still people out here who are enduring what I endured the last nine months of missing tremendously their loved ones.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: This is something that has definitely taken over Cherelle Griner's life, as it does for most of these families. To give you a sense of her frame of mind, when Cherelle Griner became one of these families, she was brought into the fold.

I actually met her at an organization, the Foley Foundation. They had a gala dinner. She was just in the first few weeks of this. And they really embraced her, those other families.

But one of the things that became very clear was Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed, released earlier this year, they have been detained in Russia for years. There was a real prospect that this could go on for much longer.

As you know, Jim, Russia is not a hospitable place for Black people, for gay people. There was a deep fear here that she could be engulfed in a global struggle that was totally out of their control.

SCIUTTO: She was sentenced to nine years. And these penal colonies, as they're known, they're labor camps, in effect they're Stalinist labor camps. The conditions there are horrendous. I'm sure Cherelle in your conversations must have been worried about her state of mind, her state of health.

PHILLIP: Yes, she was terrified. Earlier in the summer, when the first images came out of Brittney Griner, as she was in detention going into court, she had a really stunned look on her face.

I spoke to Cherelle shortly after that.

She said, you know, I talked to her. They were writing letters to each other. I talked to her and I said, you can't let them show you like that. That's part of the propaganda campaign, she believed, was to make Brittney Griner seem almost animalistic, in a cage, physically in a cage.

As we got further into the fall, I spoke to her again after she met at the White House with President Biden. Cherelle Griner was very hopeful but was also deeply fearful about Brittney Griner's state of mind.

[09:10:00]

PHILLIP: This was before she was transferred to the penal colony. She felt like Brittney Griner was deteriorating mentally and emotionally under the conditions that she was in and with the prospect that this could not be resolved.

SCIUTTO: Conditions designed to demean. Abby Phillip, thank you so much.

Erica, as we discuss this, this was deliberate. These were trumped-up charges, the U.S. viewing her as wrongfully detained. And Russia has a habit of taking Americans and people of other nationalities as bargaining chips to use them for people like a Viktor Bout, who was convicted of far more serious crimes.

HILL: Absolutely. As Abby pointed out, her conversations with Cherelle Griner, her concerns that her wife was being used as part of this propaganda campaign.

What does that look like in Russia?

CNN's Frederik Pleitgen is with us along with Nick Paton Walsh.

We've looked at this and what is actually playing out on the ground there in Russia, you've reported extensively from inside Russia. You were there during the trial.

How is this playing out this morning?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: First of all, the Russians are making it seem as though it's a big victory for Russia. Some of the statements from the Russian foreign ministry, they say they've been working on Viktor Bout's release for a long time.

They said the U.S. wasn't open to it for a very long time. Of course we know, from what Kylie was saying, this went through a lot of up and downs.

When the U.S. came out and said, yes, they had put a substantial offer on the table to try to get Brittney Griner released, the Russians were irate and said they wanted to stop the entire process because all of it had to happen behind closed doors.

Just a couple days ago, the Russians came out and said they believed there wouldn't be any further talks about prisoner swaps until the end of this year. So clearly something was going on behind the scenes.

The public messaging from the Russians was very different. One of the things I was hearing Abby speak about, what Brittney Griner went through -- and I saw that firsthand.

Having been at her trial, it was one gut punch after the next for Brittney Griner at that trial. If you look at her legal team, they put together a great defense for her. They had some witnesses who talked about the fact that some of the evidence gathering didn't happen, even according to Russian law, that there were problems with the analysis of the cartridges that allegedly contained the CBD oil, that the amount of cannabis in that was absolutely minute, I think it was 0.7 gram.

You had Brittney Griner, always sitting in a cage, brought in in shackles to that cage, had to sit in there for hours on end. She was always respectful to the court. She always talked about how much she respected Russia, she talked about how much she respected her teammates.

There were character witnesses who testified to the fact that she did a lot for basketball in Russia and that she did a lot for her team in Russia as well. But there was absolutely no leniency on the part of the court.

So all this was one gut punch after the next. I think one of the things her legal team spent a lot of time with was keeping her spirits up. By the way, the U.S. embassy also played a big role in that, the U.S. embassy in Moscow as well.

Then she was brought to that penal colony. I think it's extremely difficult psychologically to come to terms with that, because it seems so final. So for her, it must be a big, big moment to finally be out of this.

SCIUTTO: We should let folks know, these are penal colonies; they were first built by Stalin. They're hundreds of miles from Moscow. They're designed to demean. They're labor camps, in effect.

Nick Paton Walsh, you were the last person to sit down with Viktor Bout for an interview. He denied in those interviews that he was guilty of the crimes he was charged with. He called them BS. The fact is, though, those crimes were well documented. Tell us more about him. NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Yes, he

eventually found himself extradited to the United States from Thailand for which was a complicated sting put forward by the DEA, U.S. agents who were pretending to be Colombian terrorists and got Viktor Bout to agree to supply them with high-tech weaponry.

That led to a lengthy extradition back to the U.S., a conviction and then put in a U.S. jail. There's the career history, an extraordinary litany of crimes, that involved the proliferation of small arms, heavy arms across Africa during some of the nastiest wars of the '90s and early 2000s.

Other accusations, you name it; in the '90s and 2000s, if there was a war, their accusation that Viktor Bout may have been involved with what the U.S. considered to be the wrong side.

He always denied that entirely. But Jim, that was an extraordinary paradox here.

Why is a man who says he's basically an innocent pilot and a businessman shipping foodstuffs or other materials around the world, why is he of such extraordinary value to Moscow?

[09:15:00]

WALSH: A man they spent thousands assisting in his defense, trying to get him back over the past decades.

Now at a time of the worst relations between Moscow and Washington, possibly since the Cuban missile crisis, you might argue, this remarkable deal, where a high-profile American held by Russia is switched for a possibly higher profile -- in the mind of Russians -- Russian in American custody.

That's quite extraordinary. The broader theory about who Viktor Bout really was in the past is perhaps he was a man close to Russian intelligence. Again, he denies it. Perhaps he knew people who went on to be senior in Vladimir Putin's circle.

He may have had information on them. That was another theory, again, that he denied. So a man clearly of massive value to the Kremlin. They're obviously glad to have him home. But one whose real past has never been truly elucidated.

SCIUTTO: You make a good point.

Why would Russia be so interested in him if he was just someone shipping foodstuffs around the world?

Nick Paton Walsh, Fred Pleitgen, thanks so much to both of you.

We're joined by Natasha Bertrand, David Sanger, Evan Perez and Nic Robertson.

David, the president spoke about Paul Whelan a great deal here and expressed his disappointment and sympathy for his family's disappointment, that he was not part of this deal. He said the Russians said Whelan is different.

Where is Whelan left now in all this?

Who can be traded for him?

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Not in a good place, Jim.

First of all, incredibly joyous moment, huge moment for Biden, I think. Obviously Brittney Griner is such an iconic figure for so many people. This is what people are going to remember. That makes it in some ways all the tougher for Paul Whelan, who obviously doesn't have that kind of public profile.

He's an ex-Marine, has been in Russian prison for four years, is in poor health. Frankly, the one who Putin wanted to get out of this was Viktor Bout. Now that the U.S. doesn't have him to offer, as Abby and others made the point before, it's going to be a really tough thing.

What is it that you can give the Russians that would make a difference here?

That makes you begin to think that the only things that comes outside of prisoner swaps at a moment that Biden knows, sooner or later, he's going to be in negotiations with Vladimir Putin about Ukraine.

SCIUTTO: No question.

HILL: Nic, to pick up on that Ukraine point, there's a very important question of why now. None of this is happening without Vladimir Putin saying, OK, go ahead with this.

So do we have a sense of, beyond Viktor Bout, what else Putin may be trying to get out of this?

Could this be him trying to wage this for some sort of goodwill as there may or may not be an effort for a diplomatic resolution or some sort of resolution in Ukraine?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: If you're asking that question to me, I think Putin has been trying to get and curry good favor with President Biden for some time, particularly since he annexed those regions in Ukraine, particularly since he's been trying to use that as a defining moment, to get peace on the terms that he wants.

He knows that exchanging Brittney Griner and not Paul Whelan for Viktor Bout is the better move for Biden. He knows this is a better play for Biden. He's trying to give Biden something he wants to improve his relationship with Biden at the moment and try to get Biden -- because it's always seen in the United States as the partner to deal with for peace in Ukraine on Putin's terms, that Biden is the one that he wants at the table, not the Ukrainians.

So it does seem to kind of fit into that play. I think it also -- the fact that these conversations for this exchange have been going on in the background, despite the war and the tensions and no space at all for Putin and Biden to meet, no space at all since earlier in the year for Blinken and Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, to meet.

This shows that conversations have been happening and can happen and will likely happen in the future. And I think that is very instructive. But read into this, Putin has given Biden something that he thinks Biden values. And we've seen the value of it in the White House in the last few minutes.

SCIUTTO: And those diplomatic channels, it shows they are open, at least in these limited spaces here.

Evan Perez, Viktor Bout, highly involved in his case, when were they briefed on this exchange?

And does this set a precedent?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SR. JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's a big concern, Jim. The concern at the Justice Department, the FBI, the DEA, these are law enforcement agencies that worked for years to get Viktor Bout. They finally managed -- this was the operation where they captured him.

[09:20:00]

PEREZ: Got him in Thailand back in 2008, was something that a lot of people put blood, sweat and tears into.

So the concern I've heard since we reported in the summer, when these conversations were happening, was that it does set a precedent for other Americans and puts more Americans in danger.

Look, once people thought that perhaps Paul Whelan was going to come home along with Brittney Griner, there was perhaps a little bit more acceptance. But the idea that now it's just a one-for-one deal, it comes across very badly, certainly among law enforcement officials, as an epically bad deal.

Because now, as you have been pointing out, there's less to bargain for to get Paul Whelan home. So this was briefed to officials in the last few days, in the past week or so. And they made their objections known. I should point out, the Justice Department never likes these deals. But this one seemed to be epically more problematic for people.

HILL: Also interesting in terms of who was briefed when, how it all played out. I found it interesting that, David, Whelan noted that this time, in his words, the U.S. government officials let us know in advance that Paul would be left behind.

He said, unlike last April. The White House definitely learning something in those moments in terms of what happened with Trevor Reed. And clearly not wanting to make a similar mistake this time around.

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, because they know the Russians play games. Just last week the Russians were saying very publicly that they were not going to negotiate with the Americans until the end of the year. So sending very conflicting messages publicly and privately clearly.

But over the last several months, there had been these negotiations. And so the White House said repeatedly that the Russians were not negotiating in good faith.

We reported a few months ago, in exchange for Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner, the Russians were asking not only for Viktor Bout but also for a convicted Russian murderer, who is in a German prison, someone who the United States doesn't even have custody over.

So the U.S. viewed this as not a serious attempt by the Russians to negotiate. And they understood, I think, that the Russians were unlikely to be willing to do a two-for-one swap, even for someone like Viktor Bout, who has committed allegedly such serious crimes.

So I think that now the U.S. is going to move forward and see whether there's anything else they can do to release Paul. But because of how Russia views Paul's alleged crimes there, espionage, it's likely to be treated very differently to how Brittney Griner's case was there.

SCIUTTO: Erica, we should note, an American is coming home. Before today, there was no guarantee of that and she was sentenced to nine years in prison and could have spent much more time there, far from a perfect deal.

But the headline here is that someone who did not deserve to be sitting in a Russian penal colony, doing forced labor, in effect, is going to be reunited with her family.

HILL: And it is such an important moment. You could see the joy in her wife's face and you heard it in her voice. As she said, she is very grateful. She feels deeply and is obviously still so connected with the family of Paul Whelan and others, who have been detained, other Americans, and says they'll continue that fight.

But it is an incredible moment of joy for the Griner family.

Natasha Bertrand, David Sanger, Evan Perez, Nic Robertson, thank you all.

Still to come here, much more on our breaking news this morning, Brittney Griner is free. She is on her way home. We'll bring you all the latest details. Stay with us. The conversation continues.

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[09:25:00]

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HILL: Following major breaking news this morning. WNBA star Brittney Griner is on her way home. She was released in a prisoner exchange with Russia for convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: It's my job as President of the United States to make the hard calls and protect American citizens everywhere in the world, anywhere in the world. And I'm proud that today we have made one more family whole again. So welcome home, Brittney.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Joining us now to discuss, William Taylor, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

Ambassador, good to have you on this morning. I wonder, you have dealt with Russia for years. You know the difficulty of negotiating with the Kremlin. And you also know how Russia operates. They deliberately take foreigners, including Americans, in effect, as bargaining chips for trades just like this one.

Do you consider this a good prisoner swap?

WILLIAM TAYLOR, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: I do, Jim. I think this is a good outcome, certainly for Brittney Griner's family, for her, for the United States.

She's acted with dignity all along. And this is a good move. The criminal that we swapped had served time, dregs of the Earth, send him back. You asked the right question about why the Kremlin is so interested in him. But we've got Brittney Griner home and that's the good thing.

HILL: When we see her coming home, the joy in her wife's face and in her voice, even just listening to her, it is impossible, of course, not to think about Paul Whelan. That was brought up by the president, brought up by Cherelle Griner.

Jonathan Franks (ph) made the point earlier, who helped work on behalf of Trevor Reed's release, saying, in terms of Russian propaganda, Whelan is put up there as the greatest spy of all time.

With that in mind, the concern now is what or who may be left that could be a bargaining or negotiating tool to bring him home.

Do you see anything right now that the U.S. could use as leverage to bring him home?

TAYLOR: I don't. I don't see the obvious swap. One of your correspondents mentioned earlier some question about the Ukraine negotiations.

[09:30:00]