The top US hostage affairs official on Sunday reflected on conducting the prisoner swap that led to Brittney Griner's release, saying the WNBA star immediately thanked the crew returning her to the United States.
"When she finally got on to the U.S. plane, I said, 'Brittany, you must have been through a lot over the last 10 months. Here's your seat. Please feel free to decompress. We'll give you your space,'" Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union."
She was given a sense, he said, that she would be going home that day, and it felt real the moment he was able to board the other plane and tell her that "on behalf of the President of the United States, Joe Biden, and Secretary of State Tony Blinken, I'm here to take you home." "It is humbling. I'm very grateful that President Biden allows me the chance to do this job. It's also a painful job. So when you get the chance to shake someone's hand, it's one of the rare moments that you get to celebrate a victory," Carstens told Bash.
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