Like its fellow ConWeb denizens at the Media Research Center, WorldNetDaily bashed WNBA star Brittney Griner when she was imprisoned on trumped-up drug charges, and it unsurprisingly took a dim view of her release from a Russian prison — that’s because she is supposedly insufficiently worthy of release or the prisoner for which she was exchanged. Larry Tomczak complained in his Dec. 8 column:
After months of detention in Russia on drug-smuggling charges she acknowledged, WNBA celebrity Brittney Griner was “set free” and returned to America. In the meantime, less-celebrated Marine Paul Whelan remains in a maximum-security penal colony in Russia, having been sentenced to 16 years after a closed door “kangaroo court” trial convicted him on charges he totally denies and labels “fraudulent.”
At the White House celebration, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris posed for pictures with Cherelle Griner, Brittney’s second lesbian “wife.” Biden said the basketball star was released after “painstaking and intense negotiations.”
Brittney Griner was swapped for Victor Bout, currently imprisoned on a 25-year sentence, having been convicted in U.S. federal court for “conspiracy to kill American citizens and officials.” He is a radical terrorist and mass murderer nicknamed “The Merchant of Death.”
Tomczak then attacked Griner as someone who “proudly proclaims herself a lesbian, a declaration that caused her father, a Marine, to have her move out of the home” going on to sneer:
Brittney has projected an anti-American persona as she protested the national anthem, declaring that she would not go on the court if it was played. SHe called on the WNBA to stop playing the national anthem during the entire season.
The Babylon Bee recently noted, “Brittney Griner was rewarded with nine years of not hearing the U.S. national anthem.”
Dinesh D’Souza, author and filmmaker, commented, “I suspect what happened with Brittney Griner is she became massively entitled in this country – ‘I’m black, I’m a lesbian, and I am a leftist, so I am a superior person and basically above the law.’ Then she discovered to her astonishment that other countries don’t see it that way!”
Many of Tomczak’s attacks on Griner are recycled from a column he wrote about her in August.
Tomczak concluded by pretended he cares about her but also hope she sufferedin prison to the point that she became a right-wing USA-bot:
Ever since her sentencing, I personally prayed for Brittney Griner daily. In her trial she lamented that she had been “tossed into a bewildering legal system.” We hope God used this situation to bring her to an end of herself, that she would turn to Christ for healing from her brokenness and discover gratitude to God for all she’s been blessed with and probably taken for granted as a citizen of the United States. In subsequent interviews, listen carefully to what she says.
Oliver North’s Dec. 12 column — also published at CNSNews.com — was filled with sneering at Griner because “A black, LGBTQ+ celebrity was exchanged for Russian arms dealer Viktor “The Merchant of Death” Bout. … Now, Griner and Bout can return, respectively, to hating America and killing Americans.”
Back in July, James Zumwalt had put Griner on a list of “regretful ingrates” who “decided not to respect the national anthem at her games by remaining in the locker room until it ended – all to protest the death of the criminal Geroge Floyd during his arrest for yet another crime” but now wanted the U.S. to free her from Russia. Upon her release, Zumwalt unsurprisingly spewed more hate at Griner in his Dec. 14 column:
It is doubtful Griner gave any thought to other American prisoners held in Russia before her who remained behind, receiving no priority consideration.
Ironically, Griner, prior to her ill-fated Russia trip, played on basketball courts in the U.S. where she dishonored our country, in 2020, following the death of George Floyd during an arrest. She announced the national anthem should not be played before WNBA games and, if played, she would await its final note before taking to the court.
Of course Griner was unwilling to take her dissension to the point of not playing basketball as such would cause her financial hardship. Unlike McCain, whose early-release refusal caused him additional beatings, Griner could not even suffer a paycheck hit. As such, she represents the worst kind of social activist – one unhesitatingly willing to disrespect her country as long as it costs her nothing.
[…]In an exchange for a major Russian asset like Bout, we should have also negotiated Paul Whelan’s return – imprisoned in a Russian labor camp for four years (out of a 16-year sentence) on trumped-up espionage charges. Whelan, 52, warranted a priority exchange, not only based on time served but also, unlike Griner, he did nothing illegal. Additionally, he had served his country in the Marine Corps, although it ended in a punitive discharge.
Zumwalt is downplaying the criminality that got Whelan kicked out of the Marines. As we’ve pointed out, Whelan was kicked out of the Marines on a bad-conduct discharge following a court martial for attempted larceny, false statements and dereliction of duty, among other things. In other words, he actually committed crimes that were much worse the Russia accused Griner of doing (having a couple vape cartridges of cannabis oil). But rather than tell thetruth about Whelan, he lashed out at Griner some more:
It will be interesting to see whether ingrate Griner ever appreciates all that was done, at great national expense financially as well as setting a dangerous foreign policy precedent, to bring her home ahead of others. Griner got a “get out of Russian jail free” card played on her behalf. The honorable thing for her now would be not to let Whelan be forgotten and to stand for our national anthem. Sadly, don’t expect that to happen.
WND’s original “news” coverage of Griner, meanwhile, was sporadic. A Dec. 8 article by Art Moore focused on whether Saudi Arabia helped broker the exchange, an article by Moore the next day made the unremarkable argument that “Russia arrested WNBA star Brittney Griner just before its invasion of Ukraine as a tactic to gain political leverage over the United States, and a Dec. 12 article by Bob Unruh uncritically repeated Donald Trump’s justification for refusing to trade Whelan for Bout.