Ex-Trump national security adviser slams claims prisoner swap might be connected to Putin’s election bet

In June, Donald Trump announced on social media that Russian President Vladimir Putin would only release Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich if Trump is reelected in November.

The former president's 2024 campaign spokesperson said one month earlier: "There is only one person who can negotiate the safe return of Mr. Gershkovich back to his family – President Trump."

Both men turned out to be wrong, as President Joe Biden on Thursday announced that due to an historic deal negotiated between several countries, Americans who've been detained in Russia — including Gershkovich — are finally on their way back home.

READ MORE: 'We never make good deals': Trump complains about Biden bringing imprisoned Americans home

While some political commentators floated the idea that the deal is a sign that Putin "is now betting that Trump will not win the White House in November," former Trump national security adviser John Bolton — who's also former United States Ambassador to the United Nations — thinks otherwise.

When CNN's Kaitlan Collins asked Bolton why he believes Putin made this agreement now, he replied, "I don't think it's necessarily connected to the election. I don't even think it's connected to the Democratic convention coming up in three weeks."

Bolton emphasized, "I think Putin wanted [Vadim] Krasikov back [who was convicted and imprisoned in Germany for murder]. [Putin] wanted [Russian arms dealer] Viktor Bout back, and he got him, and he got a number of other Russian agents back too. I think that's the factor that's most important to him, and if he thought he could do it with a good enough deal when it came up, he took it."

The ex-UN ambassador then expressed why he thinks the prisoner swap was a bad idea.

READ MORE: Biden’s historic prisoner swap an indication Putin betting Trump will lose: pundits

"You know, I've heard all this commentary about how these seven Russian dissidents are being released," Bolton continued. "There's another way to look at that. They're being exiled. This was the practice of the czars. You want to get rid of your opponents, send them away from the country. They may be free and western Europe, which is certainly being better than being in a Russian jail. [But] they're exiled from their families, they're exiled from their friends. And by the way, their friends and families are now hostages of Putin's government and they've been told by now, or will be soon, 'Your relative better behave or you'll pay for it.' So, I think Putin's gotten the spring cleaning of Russian jails. we don't know exactly the full value of the Russians being returned but it's it's a totally unfair and really immoral swap of innocent Americans for Russian criminals."

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