
WASHINGTON—Assuring the public that he intended to make the diplomatic situation his top priority, President Biden told reporters Thursday that the United States would not rest until WNBA star Brittney Griner was returned home to serve a marijuana possession sentence. “Rest assured that we will keep our nose to the grindstone until we have word that Miss Griner is back on American soil and safely behind bars for breaking the law,” said Biden, who characterized the basketball star’s sentence of nine years in a Russian penal colony for 0.7 grams of cannabis oil as a “gross miscarriage of justice” when she should be incarcerated in a federal prison for the same thing right here in the United States. “This is an American citizen we’re talking about. She should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law in her own country for participating in the trade of illegal narcotics. Right here and now, I’m pledging to Miss Griner’s family: Brittney is coming back to America and then she’s going away for a very, very long time.” At press time, the Kremlin had reportedly indicated that they were open to a prisoner swap in which the U.S. returned a notable Russian dissidents so that he could be placed in a Chechen concentration camp.