Al Sharpton Announces Plans to Visit Brittney Griner During ‘Atrocious’ Russian Detainment – Seeks Biden Assist
Rev. Al Sharpton laid out his plans to organize a clergy visit and go see Brittney Griner while she remains in Russian detainment.
The PoliticsNation host joined his Morning Joe colleagues on Wednesday to talk about Griner after she sent a handwritten letter to President Joe Biden, imploring him to do more to secure her freedom. The WNBA star has held in Russia for the last 4 months on charges of bringing cannabis oil into the country, and the U.S. government has called her detainment “wrongful.”
As he spoke about his hope to arrange a clergy visit, Sharpton explained that he recently spoke with Griner’s family members, and they reiterated concerns that the White House has not made Griner’s release a priority. Sharpton also noted the U.S. recently secured former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed’s release from Russia, but since Griner was already in jail by that point, “she could have been part of that swap with Russia then.”
“I think that the family has rightfully started raising the level of a profile on this. I’ve been talking to them for weeks, and I certainly want to engage whatever I could to heighten the attention,” Sharpton said. “It’s my intention to be in Russia next week, and I hope the White House will help to make it possible for me to do a clergy visit to let her know of the support, and to let her know that her family and everyone is concerned about her, and pray with her and bring some pastors with me.”
Sharpton went on by defending the trip for the sake of verifying the conditions of Griner’s detainment, and to facilitate communication between her and the White House.
She’s in a prison where most of the people can’t even talk English. She can’t even communicate with the people that run the prison. She’s in a Russian jail. And for people to act like 4 and a half months for her to be in that kind of isolation under those conditions — a phone call that was supposedly arranged with her wife didn’t happen. I mean, this is atrocious at best. We don’t even know if she’s even remotely guilty of what they’re saying. Is she being used as some political tool for Putin? We don’t know, which is why we wanna go, we wanna do it as clergy people.
Watch above, via MSNBC.
