Leftist female basketball player Brittney Griner begged Democrat President Joe Biden Monday afternoon in a handwritten letter to help free her from Russia after she was taken into custody earlier this year for allegedly having drugs on her as she entered the country.
Griner’s arrest in Russia comes after Western nations have supplied weapons and training to Ukraine to fight back against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of the country. Russia has also been hit with hard sanctions.
The handwritten letter from Griner to Biden contained the following excerpts (the rest of the letter remained private):
- ” … as I sit here in a Russian prison, alone with my thoughts and without the protection of my wife, family, friends, Olympic jersey, or any accomplishments, I’m terrified I might be here forever.”
- “On the 4th of July, our family normally honors the service of those who fought for our freedom, including my father who is a Vietnam War Veteran. It hurts thinking about how I usually celebrate this day because freedom means something completely different to me this year.”
- “I realize you are dealing with so much, but please don’t forget about me and the other American Detainees. Please do all you can to bring us home. I voted for the first time in 2020 and I voted for you. I believe in you. I still have so much good to do with my freedom that you can help restore. I miss my wife! I miss my family! I miss my teammates! It kills me to know they are suffering so much right now. I am grateful for whatever you can do at this moment to get me home.”
Griner previously advocated for not having the U.S. National Anthem played during WBNA games and refused to be on the court while it was played.
The U.S. State Department has claimed that Griner was “wrongfully detained” back in February when she was allegedly caught “carrying vape cartridges with hashish oil in her luggage at an airport near Moscow as she returned to Russia to resume playing for UMMC Yekaterinburg, a professional women’s basketball team,” The New York Times reported. “In other cases of wrongful detention, the United States had insisted that it would not link the fate of imprisoned individuals to larger policy issues.”
Brittney Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner, told the Associated Press last month that Brittney had tried to call her 11 times over several hours on their anniversary using a number that U.S. officials gave to her that “would then patch the call through to Cherelle Griner in Phoenix,” the AP reported. “But each time, the call went unanswered because the desk at the embassy where the phone rang was apparently unstaffed.”
“I was distraught. I was hurt. I was done, fed up,” Cherelle Griner told the AP. “I’m pretty sure I texted BG’s agent and was like: ‘I don’t want to talk to anybody. It’s going to take me a minute to get my emotions together, and just tell everybody I’m unavailable right now.’ Because it just knocked me out. I wasn’t well, I’m still not well.”
The latest news about Griner comes after reports from late last week revealed that former President Donald Trump advocated hard for rapper A$AP Rocky when he was arrested in Sweden in 2019 and reportedly threatened a trade war over the matter.
“In an interview with Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter [Swedish Minister of Justice] Morgan Johansson said the 45th president warned ‘trade restrictions’ would be slapped on the country if Rocky — whose real name is Rakim Mayers — was not released,” the New York Post reported. “Rocky was arrested in July 2019 and held in jail for a month after being involved in a fight prior to a scheduled appearance at a Stockholm music festival.”