Even if it were true, it would only explain the way OUT.
On the way back in, the Homeland “Security” folks at immigration would have had to look at his actual passport. They could have scanned the green card. If there were a red flag on it, shouldn’t they have asked where he’d been? Whatever passport he had, it should have had Russian entry and exit stamps.
WTF??
Whenever I travel on business to LONDON they scan my passport, look at the stamps and ask me what I was doing there. Is that scanner connected to ANYTHING??
One more point: what was the NAME of the airline employee who didn’t scan his greencard (they scan my passport when I travel) but DECIDED to type it in and then ACCIDENTALLY misspelled the name??