Editorial: Celebrate Brittney Griner’s homecoming, but don’t forget about Paul Whelan

With a deep exhale, Cherelle Griner unloaded nine months of unimaginable anguish. Her wife, Brittney Griner, the WNBA star detained in Russia on a drug conviction, would finally be coming home, just in time for the holidays.  

Griner grew up here. For many Houstonians, the relief is personal. Yet, some have greeted this good news with questions. Did this deal amount to negotiating with terrorists and why couldn’t President Biden secure the release of Paul Whelan, another American detained in Russia? For those closest to Griner, though, her release brought about sheer joy.

Standing at a podium at the White House, flanked by Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Cherelle Griner was overwhelmed with gratitude. She thanked Biden and Harris, as well as several national security officials, for their tireless negotiations to secure her wife’s release in a prisoner exchange with Russia for a notorious arms dealer. 

Months ago, Cherelle closed out a “Bring BG Home Rally” in Phoenix with palpable emotional exhaustion, saying she “can’t rest” until her wife was home safe. 

“Today is just a happy day for me and my family,” Cherelle said while her wife was on a plane en route back to the U.S. “So I’m going to smile right now.” 

When Griner was arrested at a Russian airport in February on allegations that she had hashish oil in her luggage, she immediately became the most high-profile face of the international population of wrongful detainees as well as a symbol for the plight of grossly underpaid women athletes.

A two-time Olympian and one of the best women’s basketball players in the world, the only reason Griner even set foot on Russian soil in the first place was to supplement her relatively paltry WNBA income. She was set to make $227,900 to suit up for the Phoenix Mercury, close to the maximum for a WNBA player and another $1 million playing overseas. By comparison, Stephen Curry, the highest-paid NBA player, will make $48 million this season. 

But the circumstances of Griner’s arrest as an openly gay Black woman imprisoned in a country hostile to the LGBTQ community — and which just last month banned all forms of material promoting or “praising” LGBTQ relationships — created an unprecedented sense of urgency to pursue every option to bring her home. 

The Biden administration reclassified Griner’s case in May, asserting she had been wrongfully detained, and kickstarting months of negotiations with the Russian government, no doubt complicated by the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, which the U.S. has condemned and buttressed Ukrainian defense efforts with billions in aid. When Griner was transferred to a penal colony last month, it only increased the pressure on those talks. 

That U.S. officials were forced to return arms dealer Viktor Bout to Russia in exchange for Griner underscores the difficulty in conducting good faith negotiations with a country that, under President Vladimir Putin, has demonstrated such a callous disregard for human life. There is simply no universe in which Griner and Bout are on equal standing. Even if you concede that Griner made a terrible mistake as a guest in a nation that punishes drug offenders harshly, Bout was convicted in a U.S. court of conspiring to kill Americans and providing material support to terrorist organizations. He has profited off of bloody conflicts across the globe, from Liberia to Afghanistan, earning the appalling nickname “the merchant of death” in the process.  

It is disappointing that, in a swap releasing this heinous war criminal, the U.S. failed to win freedom for more than one American prisoner. Even Cherelle Griner, in her remarks Thursday, acknowledged that Michigan corporate security executive Paul Whelan — whom U.S. officials say was baselessly jailed on espionage charges in 2018 — remains behind bars, saying Whelan’s family “is in our hearts today.” In turn, Whelan’s brother David showed immense grace by commending the Biden administration for making “the right decision to bring Ms. Griner home and to make the deal that was possible, rather than waiting for the one that wasn’t going to happen.”

Both Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken committed to continue working to bring Whelan home, and it’s certainly encouraging that the prisoner exchange led to a conversation between Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, a rare moment of international diplomacy at a time of highly strained relations. 

Whelan will never have the public profile Griner does. There aren’t rallies at sports arenas or celebrities speaking out on his behalf. But if there’s any hope for his eventual release, it’s that he now has an ally in Cherelle and Brittney Griner who will use their platform to ensure that the phone lines between the U.S. and Russia remain open. 

“BG is not here to say this, but I will gladly speak on her behalf and say that BG and I will remain committed to the work of getting every American home including Paul,” Cherelle Griner said. 

Welcome home, Brittney. Your safe return should be celebrated across the globe. Now it’s our job as a nation to make sure that we sustain our advocacy for other international detainees who still await a joyous outcome.