Brittney Griner

When Brittney Griner took to the stage in Phoenix last week for her first official presser since her return to the United States in December, having spent nearly 10-months detained in Russia for drug allegations the U.S. State Department deemed “wrongful,” it was clear it was not going to be any ordinary media event. Griner, who wore a black shirt that represented her new partnership with the advocacy group “Bring Our Families Home,” laughed when she saw the number of reporters assembled.

Every morning for the last several months, I have reached for a small orange and black pin from the top of my bureau and attached it to whatever I’m wearing that day – a dress, a blouse, a tee, a sweatshirt. “We Are BG,” reads the pin, and every day that I wear it, at least one person asks me what it means, making at least one more person who knows about the detainment of basketball legend Brittney Griner in a Russian prison.

For well over 100 days, American basketball ball star Brittney Griner has been held captive in a Russian prison, arrested for allegations of essentially possession of marijuana. Most of that you already know that, just as you likely also know of her contact with the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, as well as her recent guilty plea on the drug charge, something we’d been told is part of a larger strategy towards her hopeful release. Beyond that, there’s not much we know, at least not legally speaking. And most likely any actual legal maneuvering is happening under the shroud of diplomatic secrecy, as if the script for a future Tom Hanks movie.

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