Hostage Envoy: We Can Take Steps to ‘Hopefully’ Ensure Russian Hitman Freed in Swap Won’t Be Dangerous

On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens stated that it’s tough to know what Russian assassin Vadim Krasikov will do now that he’s been released as a result of the prisoner swap between the U.S. and Russia, but the definite release of wrongfully-detained Americans was worth the risk and “We can take different mitigation steps to, hopefully, make sure that he behaves himself as life goes forward.”

Host Jake Tapper asked, “Did the U.S. make the assessment that encouraging Germany to release the Russian assassin Vadim Krasikov to achieve this swap would not ultimately put people in danger?”

Carstens responded, “It’s hard to determine what he’s going to do in the future. Obviously, we hope he goes back and does nothing. There’s a phrase that the moral imperative outweighs the moral hazard. We knew that, in trading him, we would get x number of people back, and that was a good thing provable that day. What happens in the future with him? We don’t know. We can hope. We can take different mitigation steps to, hopefully, make sure that he behaves himself as life goes forward. But you always assume a risk in these situations and the president’s been willing to make these hard decisions. … Germany was willing to make that, and we just have to push on.”

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