President Biden will sit down with the families of Houston native and Baylor alum, WNBA star Britney Griner and former US Marine Paul Whelan. Both are in custody in Russia.
Griner, an Olympic gold medalist, has been sentenced to nine years in prison on a drug charge and Whelan is serving 16 years after being convicted of spying. The White House says both are unlawfully detained. The families will meet separately with the president.
The US has a deal on the table to exchange the pair for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
Richard Sindelar, Director of the Center for International Studies at the University of St. Thomas in Houston says that might not quite be enough.
This week, former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson made a private trip to Moscow to bargain for Griner and Whelan's release. "If Richardson shows up and makes a different deal, you might inspire the Russians to ask for more and crater the first deal you're working on. He might propose something different from the Biden administration and give the Russians another quiver in their arrow to ask for. The Russians feel they have a lot of leverage."
He adds elections are coming up, and the Russians know the Biden administration needs this win, and supposedly they've been upping the ante. Sindelar says they've added in a second Russian criminal convicted in the US and an assassin tried and convicted by the Germans. who was sent by Russian President Vladimir Putin to assassinate an enemy of Russia. The US can't do anything about the Russian in Germany.
He says it isn't clear why Richardson chose this moment to go to Moscow.
He says Biden can share a bit more detail to the families and offer a little more optimism. "Probably the Richardson trip inspired him to get it on the agenda and tell them what he knows. He will know more than we know." And there's a reason, he says, for optimism. "Generally with these things, most times where you get to the point where there's a deal on the table and a trade off, I'm an old Cold Warrior from the 70's and 80's. These things usually come off but they also require patience. I think we get Griner and Whelan back and probably sooner rather than later. Is that in time for the end of September? Probably not. I would think within the next couple of months we might see something."
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