Donald Trump Jr launches frenzied attack on Biden over Brittney Griner release

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Donald Trump Jr has launched a belligerent Twitter tirade against Joe Biden and WNBA star Brittney Griner after her release from a Russian prison.

Don Jr whined about the deal to swap Ms Griner for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout in a series of posts on Twitter on Thursday morning, repeating some of his father Donald Trump’s favourite talking points about Mr Biden’s negotiating skills.

“No one cuts better deals than Biden,” he wrote sarcastically. “We get an awful America hating WNBA player, while Russia gets an INTERNATIONAL ARMS DEALER!”

Don Jr repeated the offensive slur against Ms Griner, a two-time Olymnpic gold medallist, in a subsequent Twitter post.

“You guys know how to make sure Putin keeps arresting Americans and severely punishing them? Trade him an arms dealer aka ‘The Merchant of Death’ someone guilty of conspiring to kill Americans and aiding a terrorist organisation for an America Hating WNBA activist. Great trade!” he wrote.

He went on to bizarrely link the prisoner exchange to gun control in the United States: “The same Administration pushing gun control here at home, making it harder for law abiding citizens to defend themselves and their families, just released an international arms dealer who conspired to kill Americans. Just let that sink in folks! It’s about control not guns!”

Bout, 55, was arrested in Thailand in 2008 after being caught in a sting operation conspiring to sell weapons to a Colombian terrorist who threatened to kill US citizens. At the time, he was one of the best-known arms dealers in the world and had trafficked weapons to conflicts across the world for decades.

Dubbed the “Merchant of Death”, he was extradited to the United States and sentenced to 25 years in federal prison in 2012.

Bout was supposedly the inspiration for a character played by Nicholas Cage in the 2005 movie Lord of War.

Ms Griner was arrested at a Moscow airport in February for possession of a small amount of cannabis oil, and sentenced to nine years in a Russian penal colony.