- Let's start by telling us how Brittney Griner is doing.
- Well, she's at San Antonio,
at the Brooke Army Medical Center,
getting appropriate both mental health care
as well as physical health care,
just to make sure that she's ready for her reintegration
back into American society.
They'll work that out with the doctors and the family
as to how much longer she'll need to be there,
but our initial reports
are she's in very good spirits and in good health.
- Can you unequivocally say that there was never an option
between Paul Whelan or Brittney Griner?
- Yes, ma'am, I can.
There was never a choice posed by the Russians,
"Well, hey, you give us Bout back
and then you can decide whether you want Brittney or Paul.
That was never the arrangement.
It was only Ms Griner for Mr Bout.
They treat Paul differently, Shannon.
Because of these sham espionage charges,
he is put in a special category by the Russians,
and try as we might -- and believe me, Shannon, we did.
Right up until the very end,
we were making efforts to try to get both of them out.
There was jut no way to get there.
So it was either make this deal now
and at least get one of them home
and keep up the efforts to get Paul home,
and that's where we are right now.
- We have to be very clear --
we can celebrate Brittney being home.
This isn't one or the other.
This isn't, you know, we don't want her home.
We're happy she is.
The reality, though -- you have to look at, obviously,
Paul Whelan, who has been detained for a number of years
right now -- about 4 years -- and then you look at the fact
that there's a guy named Marc Fogel,
who was another American who was arrested a little over a year
and a half ago for a small amount of marijuana possession,
who was given 14 years in prison.
So I think the thing -- the reason
I'm critical of what this deal is is again,
we love that Brittney's home, okay?
So let's put that aside.
But why is it that Marc Fogel wasn't included?
And also when, you know, people say,
"Look, it was the best deal we could get.
It was the only thing the Russians were going to offer."
If you make it clear that you're willing to take a deal
no matter what, you're going to get a bad deal,
and I think you have to negotiate
from a position of strength.
- I want to talk to you about this report by John Bolton,
a former colleague of yours in the Trump administration,
who says that there was talk of a Bout
for Whelan trade under the Trump administration.
You were CIA Director. You were Secretary of State.
Certainly, you would have to know about those discussions.
Is that true, and why wasn't the deal made?
- I don't want to talk about
the private conversations that were had,
and Ambassador Bolton is free to say whatever he might like,
but we were very focused on getting Paul Whelan out,
every American back home.
- Is John Bolton telling the truth?
- I don't want to comment on our internal discussions.
We were working hard on each of the cases,
including Paul Whelan's case, during my time in service,
and we were talking with the Russians at multiple levels.
Our ambassador on the ground there in Russia, John Sullivan,
was working with them.
There were lots of discussions about
what the right mechanism forward was.
But the Trump administration was always very clear --
we weren't going to trade bad guys for celebrities
because it creates the wrong incentives for the bad guys.
- Do you recall a potential prisoner swap with Russia?
- Yes, I do recall that.
That was raised many times by the Russians,
that they wanted Viktor Bout,
and at the time, there was also the drug smuggler, Yaroshenko,
who was ultimately swapped for Trevor Reed,
the other former Marine.
- Why was that swap turned down then
but happened just this past week?
- Well, look, at the particular time --
I also have to say here that President Trump
wasn't especially interested in engaging
in that swap for also Paul Whelan.
He was not particularly interested in Paul's case
in the way that one would have thought he would be.
Ambassador Bolton met with Elizabeth Whelan, Paul's sister.
I was at that meeting, as well.
There was a lot of attention being paid to this
and trying to find ways of arranging Paul's release
by all different parts of the US government.
But, of course, there was a big debate
about Viktor Bout himself.
I mean, as we see and now as well,
the absurdity of the Russians asking for the release
of a notorious arms dealer,
as well as somebody who'd been convicted
of large-scaled narcotics smuggling,
in return for American citizens who had been either set up,
in the case of Paul Whelan, and later, imprisoned,
in the case of Trevor Reed and Brittney Griner,
for very minor infractions.