‘Get at the Negotiating Table’: Trevor Reed Spox Pleads With Biden to Make Griner Prisoner Swap Happen — Even If It’s ‘Politically Unpopular’

Jonathan Franks, a spokesman for the family of former Russia detainee Trevor Reed, urged the Biden administration to fast-track prisoner swap negotiations to secure the freedom of Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan.

Franks spoke to MSNBC’s Jon Fryer (in for Katy Tur) on Thursday to give his reaction to Griner being sentenced to 9 years in Russian prison for drug smuggling and possession charges. As he blasted the “outrageous” Russian legal process surrounding Griner’s case, Franks predicted that prison swap talks “will accelerate [but] this could have been handled while she was on trial.”

The conversation gravitated around the reported prisoner exchange the Biden administration is considering to swap convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout for Griner and Whelan. Fryer asked Franks if he was “hopeful” that the exchange would go through, or if he was worried that the deal was at risk because of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s rhetoric:

The Russian court’s conviction and sentencing of U.S. citizen Brittney Griner spotlights our concerns with the Russian government’s use of wrongful detentions. I am committed to ensuring we do everything we can to bring home Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan as soon as possible.

— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) August 4, 2022

“I don’t really understand why they did this, doing this in public,” Franks said. “But then again, I’ve been campaigning for them to be more bold in public for years so I kind of feel like I can’t oppose it. I don’t know why they did this…I’m not worried about the Russian side. They want Bout back a lot. I’m worried about the American side, and the Russians are going to try to inject an ‘Us versus Them’ narrative into our discourse and people can lose their stomachs politically.”

Franks went on to express his view that the proposed Bout trade is “a great deal,” saying “If [the Russians] won’t do a two-for-one deal…the government should do a two-for-two deal.”

“They cannot leave Miss Griner in prison. They left Paul Whalen in the gulag for too long,” Franks said. “It’s time to get at the negotiating table and hammer out a deal. These deals are never neat and tidy, they’re often politically unpopular, they leave a sour taste. But, as a country, we have to decide if we’re willing to bring our people home, and what we’re willing to do to get that outcome.”

Reached for comment by Mediaite, Franks pointed out the work done by the Richardson Center for Global Engagement, which had supported the efforts to get Trevor Reed released and is now working to bring Griner home.

“We need to have an urgent national conversation on what we are prepared to do to bring our people home,” he said.

Watch above, via MSNBC.

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