Is Joe Biden doing enough to secure the release of basketball superstar and double Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner, held in Moscow days before the Ukraine invasion? The athlete’s wife, her coach, leaders of the black community and hundreds of thousands of people who have signed petitions in her favor did not see it clearly and demanded more attention for her for months. Faced with the outcry, Biden reacted yesterday: he spoke with the player’s wife and assured that yes, he does what he can for Griner.
Russian police arrested the Phoenix Mercury center and star of the US women’s basketball league as she arrived at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport from her home in Houston. The player was in transit to Yekaterinburg, where she completed her season in the award-winning team of the same name. Agents said they found hashish oil in her luggage. It was on February 17, a week before Putin’s army attacked Ukraine.
On Monday, July 4, the US national holiday, the 31-year-old athlete sent Biden a letter in which she said: “Sitting here in a Russian prison, alone with my thoughts and far from me family and friends, I am terrified at the thought of being here forever.” And she added: “I voted for the first time in 2020 and I did it for you. I believe in you. I know you have a lot to deal with, but please don’t forget about me and the other American detainees, and do everything you can to get us home.”
Biden read the letter carefully, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday. The president “does everything he can,” she added. A statement that the pastor and black leader Al Sharpton, a supporter of Biden, questioned: “I think they could have done more,” he said.
Along the same lines, some 1,200 prominent black women from civic organizations and the fields of culture and sports signed and sent the president a letter in which they urged him as follows: “It is imperative, President Biden, that you address this crisis of rights humans and come to an agreement to get Brittney home quickly and safely.” He identical petition to the one formulated in the text that circulates on the Change.org network and yesterday it already gathered almost 300,000 signatures.
The player’s wife, Cherelle Griner, lamented on Tuesday that Biden had not received her: “It kills me when Brittney asks me if I have already met with them and I have to say no,” she said. And the coach of the star in the Mercury, Vanessa Nygaard, raised: “If I were LeBron James I would already be at home.”
Biden, along with Vice President Kamala Harris, finally phoned Cherelle Griner yesterday to “assure her that he is working to get Brittney released as soon as possible,” he announced in a note. He also wrote a letter to the athlete whose draft he read to his wife, to whom he guaranteed all possible support.
Brittney Griner’s trial began on Friday. If she is found guilty, she faces up to 10 years in jail. “She can always appeal or ask for a pardon,” a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry commented yesterday with black irony. A war response.
