The arrest raised speculation that he could be swapped for one of the Russians held in the U.S., such as gun rights activist Maria Butina, who has pleaded guilty to acting as a foreign agent in the U.S.

Is Paul being held in solitary confinement and not given access to his meds like Maria was? She was no more a Russian spy than I am, she is a student and she got caught up with some guy who BTW I haven't seen charged for whatever she was supposed to have done. The kos kids say that she was the front person for the Russians to launder their money through the NRA and that lots of republicans are being blackmailed by Russia because they took the money.

Funny though that no one is being blackmailed for taking money from Israel. The Saudis or any of the other foreign people and governments that donate to our congress critters.

Psst .. Maria wasn't the one who met with Trump Jr after having her passport fixed.

I should essay it since you'll never read about it in the news.

Paul Whelan may or may not be quite who he appears to be. He's a travel enthusiast, and happens to have citizenship in three countries. He works in the security detail of this enormous automotive corporation you've never heard of. It's the largest of it's kind for building giant vehicles. It turns out, they build some the next generation Russian mega vehicles and tanks. The company is actually majority owned by Russia. Right here in Detroit. Last place you'd think to look. Right?

There's a second plant right outside of Russia. Largest automotive factory in Europe, perhaps in the world. They build some top secret mobile military machines there, like Russia's mobile nuclear missile launchers that constantly crawl invisibly through the Russian continent's vast Siberian forests that stretch all the way to Alaska. That's why Russia has profound second-, and even third-strike superiority over the US. If the US shoots first, it's the last thing they will ever do.

Well, it seems the CIA wangled some clerk at their giant European plant to steal some of the top secret data and put it on a flash drive. Then they sent this guy to Moscow to pass the data to Paul Whelan. He says he thought it was travel info and films he was going to take back to a fellow travel enthusiast he knows in the US. They both get busted during the pass off because Russia has been playing Spy vs. Spy.

This has noting to do with Butina, who was off doing her own zany thing in a very public way. Building her career, making contacts. She's locked up in a hell hole. Paul has fine accommodations and has been visited by consuls from the US, the UK, and Canada, so far. No one is trading anyone or anything for Butina. She's fake news and is being deported.

This is high stakes spying by the CIA using a couple of amateur stooges, perhaps.