Fiona Hill established herself as one of the Trump administration’s “stars.” Check that Fiona Hill demonstrated why this country has always had and – hopefully, always will, have a “deep state.” Because Fiona Hill came over to the National Security Council to serve her country, she was a Russian expert at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and came “to help,” not Trump, but her country.

So, given that Fiona Hill is not political, we can trust her answer regarding Trump’s interest in Paul Whelan, who Trump has been talking about so much lately, that he could have brought Whelan home. Hill says Trump wasn’t interested. Transcript from Mediaite:

ARGARET BRENNAN: Your former colleague, John Bolton, a former boss right on the National Security Council, told one of my colleagues at CBS that the possibility of a Bout for Weyland trade existed back then, and it wasn’t made for very good reasons. Having to deal with Viktor Bout, do you recall a potential prisoner swap with Russia?

FIONA HILL: Yes, I do recall that that was raised many times by the Russians that they wanted Viktor Bout. And at the time, there was also the drug smuggler, Yaroshenko, who was ultimately swapped for Trevor Reed, the other former Marine. They were put on the table by the Russians, making it very clear that they had every intent of trying to swap Americans that have been wrongfully detained for individuals in the United States custody who were there for pretty good reasons.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you see something particularly dangerous about Viktor Bout? I mean, why was that swap turned down then? But it happened just this past week.

FIONA HILL: Well, look, at the particular time. I also have to say here that President Trump wasn’t especially interested in engaging in that swap for also Paul Whelan. He was not particularly interested in Paul’s case in the way that one would have thought he would be.

Ambassador Bolton met with Elizabeth Whelan, Paul’s sister. I was at that meeting as well. There was a lot of attention being paid to this and trying to find ways of arranging Paul’s release by all different parts of the US government.

But of course was a big debate about Viktor Bout himself, and as we see now as well the absurdity of the Russians asking for the release of a notorious arms dealer, as well as somebody who had been convicted of large scale narcotics smuggling, in return for American citizens who had been either set up in the case of Paul Whelan and later imprisoned, in the case of travel agent Brittney Griner for very minor infractions that would have been handled differently in different cases.

It was clear that the Russians were looking to kind of set the United States up as well for just the kinds of things that we’re seeing now in terms of the roiling of our domestic politics, as Chairman Schiff talked about later. So this is all part of a political game for the Russian government.

Not as interested in Paul Whelan as one “would have thought him to be.” Sounds to us like someone didn’t want to confront Putin on anything. “Russia, Russia, Russia.”

There was a potential prisoner swap raised during the Trump administration of Marine veteran Paul Whelan for Viktor Bout, former National Security Council Russia specialist Fiona Hill says. But, Pres. Trump wasn't "particularly interested" in Whelan's case though, Hill adds. pic.twitter.com/n7gC6iHbuK

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) December 11, 2022

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[email protected], @JasonMiciak, with Nicole Hickman