In case you are tempted to believe Trump’s fatuous claim that he secured the release of prisoners without giving anything up in return, here’s a fact check:
Criticizing the Biden administration’s recent prisoner swap of Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout for WNBA star Brittney Griner as “a one-sided disaster,” former President Donald Trump wrongly boasted that his administration “got 58 hostages released from various hostile countries without paying any money, or giving up anything.”
In fact, several of the deals resulting in the release of Americans held hostage or being wrongfully detained abroad came as a result of prisoner swaps during Trump’s time in office.
In November 2019, the Trump administration secured the release of American Kevin King and Australian Timothy Weeks, who were being held by the Taliban, in exchange for the release of three senior Taliban leaders being held in jails in Afghanistan.
In December 2019, the U.S. did a prisoner exchange with Iran, freeing Xiyue Wang, a graduate student at Princeton University who was serving a 10-year sentence in Iran on espionage charges. To secure Wang’s release, the U.S. freed Masoud Soleimani, an Iranian scientist convicted of export violations.
In July 2020, the Trump administration secured the release of Michael White, a Marine veteran jailed in Iran on charges of insulting the country’s supreme leader, in exchange for the release of a dermatologist convicted on export violations.
In October 2020, a deputy assistant to Trump helped broker a deal to free two Americans being held hostage by Iranian-backed militants in Yemen in exchange for the release of about 250 Houthi rebels being held in Oman.
So he’s full of shit. But you know that.
In a Feb. 7, 2020, story for the New Yorker, Joel Simon, a fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, wrote that Trump “repeatedly pushed the boundaries of the no-concessions policy upheld by Republican and Democratic Presidents since Nixon. Trump’s style of resolving cases is more personal and more flexible.” In contrast to former President Barack Obama, Simon wrote, Trump “has gone out of his way to highlight his personal engagement in hostage-recovery efforts, welcoming hostages home on national television or inviting them to Oval Office photo opportunities. Trump seeks to showcase his skill as a deal maker and gain the political benefit of bringing Americans home.”
In a February 2019 review of a book on hostage negotiation by Simon, Jason Rezaian of the Washington Post, who was held hostage by Iran for 544 days, discussed the messy and morally fraught business of negotiating the release of overseas hostages and noted Trump’s successes on this front.
“No government has found a way to prevent hostage-taking, and the practice is getting more widespread,” Rezaian wrote. “But this is one area where the Trump administration has had some success. Andrew Brunson, a pastor detained in Turkey, was released in October 2018 after the United States imposed sanctions and tariffs. Joshua Holt, a Mormon missionary, was freed in May 2018 after nearly two years in a Venezuelan prison following separate meetings by two U.S. senators with President Nicolás Maduro.
“But a question still nags: Those releases came at what cost? For no hostage is ever freed for nothing,” Rezaian wrote.
That is correct. The alleged “deal maker” made prisoner swaps just like every president. He did it for his own personal aggrandizement but that’s just par for the course. The results were the same.
It’s a terrible business. But you cannot leave innocent people in prison if you have the means to get them out. Trump knows this. He just lies.