On Monday’s “CNN Primetime,” CNN Pentagon Correspondent Oren Liebermann reported that Viktor Bout — the arms dealer freed in the Biden administration’s prisoner swap for Brittney Griner — is now running for office in Russia and stated that the move is “the exact concern that everyone had raised back when this deal was announced and Bout was released.”
Host Kaitlan Collins asked, “Oren, we’re also learning about the Russian arms dealer that everyone came to know, Viktor Bout, he was this notorious arms dealer, the so-called merchant of death, and he was the person that the U.S. exchanged for Brittney Griner. And we’ve now learned that he is running for office in Russia. Isn’t this what critics of that prisoner swap said at the time, that they were worried about him regaining power and status in Russia?”
Liebermann responded, “Absolutely. That was always the concern with releasing Viktor Bout in this prisoner exchange with Brittney Griner. As you pointed out, he’s known as the merchant of death. He is a notorious arms dealer. He was arrested back in ’08 and then sentenced in 2012 to 25 years for conspiring to kill Americans, providing material support to a terrorist organization, and more. So, there was an open question, a very open question and critics asked the administration, why trade him for Brittney Griner? But the administration moved forward with that prisoner exchange last year, believing it was, at that point, the right thing to do. And now, this is what the concern was, that Bout was never going to go quietly into the night, instead, he’s at least more directly entering politics now. … This appears to be a much more direct entry, the exact concern that everyone had raised back when this deal was announced and Bout was released.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett