Posted on 08/02/2024 2:44:09 PM PDT by CFW
The Wall Street Journal on Thursday published an extensive report on the secret negotiations to secure the release of Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich from Russian prison. It includes a startling passage about how President Joe Biden, sometimes referred to as "Sleepy Joe," almost botched the prisoner exchange because has no idea what's going on, and strongly suggests that Secretary of State Antony Blinken is actually running the show.
The following scene involves Gershkovich's mother, Ella, ambushing Biden in a handshake line at the White House Correspondents' Dinner earlier this year. She relayed a message from Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, and urged Biden to call German chancellor Olaf Scholz in order to advance the multilateral deal:
Ella was at her second White House Correspondents' Dinner that month and joined Biden’s handshake line to deliver another backchannel message, this time with more specificity. An official from Carstens' office had told her to ask Biden to call the German leader to move things forward. And one of her sources had told her that it would be bad for Scholz to back out after making a commitment. To make her case, she'd have only seconds.
"We need more," she said to the president. "Can you please call Chancellor Scholz?" Biden said he had made that call. Blinken, standing next to the president, looked down, then gently clarified, saying they would make the call. "I promise, I promise, I promise," Biden said, before the handshake line moved on.
Two days later, President Biden sent a letter to Scholz, a formal request that gave the Chancellor the mechanism he needed to formalize a deal.
(Excerpt) Read more at freebeacon.com ...
There is no telling the harm that is going to be caused by those released. We will be able to look back at this point in history and say, "This is when foreign enemies knew they had the green-light to attack America".
When Biden got on the wrong plane at the end of the prisoner return soiree, for about a minute, I thought we’d made the best deal ever.
Russian prisoner swap deal was [supposed] to have included Alexei Navalny
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4255837/posts
His dead body?
And I'm still p***** that that he/she athlete got returned a while back before our guys.
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