Washington Free Beacon Parrots Russia’s Accusation Brittney Griner Smuggled Weed
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The Washington Free Beacon parroted Russia’s accusation that WNBA superstar Brittney Griner smuggled weed into Russia, where she is being held captive.
On Thursday, Robert Schmad, an intern, wrote a piece headlined “Biden Wants To Swap Russian ‘Merchant of Death’ for American Weed Smuggler and Wrongfully Accused Marine.” While the first and third references, respectively, to Viktor Bout and Paul Whelan are correct, the second to Griner is Russian propaganda.
The lede of Schmad’s piece reads, “The Biden administration has offered to swap a prolific arms dealer who conspired to kill Americans for a WNBA player who smuggled cannabis oil into Russia and a wrongfully accused former Marine, CNN reported Thursday.”
In fact Griner isn’t even accused of being a “weed smuggler.” It was cannabis oil that Russia said she carried, which her lawyers have explained was medical. But the trumped-up reaction and charges, as CNN noted this morning, make Griner’s arrest and Whelan’s tantamount to “hostage-taking.” Given her celebrity status, Russia was likely always intending to use her as a pawn in order to get back someone like Bout, who transported arms to terrorist groups and other evil actors.
Thursday was not the first time the Free Beacon took Russia’s side in the Griner case.
“Whatever one thinks of Russia’s draconian drug laws, Griner has quite plausibly admitted her guilt,” wrote the Free Beacon in a July 8 editorial, which asked “Should Bout go free because a WNBA star wanted to get high when she was playing basketball in an authoritarian police state?”
The Free Beacon is correct that Griner shouldn’t be given more priority. Griner and Whelan should be treated with the same urgency. However, the outlet did not take into account that Griner likely pleaded guilty because Russia’s justice system, which is unfair, has a 99 percent conviction rate and therefore wouldn’t have excused Griner having the hashish oil for medicinal purposes. The Free Beacon was dismissing what one might think of Russia’s “draconian drug laws” as inconsequential, and effectively treating the arrest as plainly good faith.
The real outrage should be not over Griner, rather the Biden administration offering this reported awful deal in that Bout is a threat to national security. Also, it is inexcusable that apparently another American being held by Russia, Marc Fogel, wouldn’t be included in a prisoner swap.
Journalism requires not going along with a narrative, rather having skepticism, objectivity and, above all, reporting the truth. The Free Beacon, which does excellent work reporting on stories not covered in the mainstream media, failed in this regard.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
