U.S. Offers to Swap Russian Arms Dealer for Griner and Whelan
In an interview last month, however, the judge who sentenced Mr. Bout, Shira A. Scheindlin, said that Mr. Bout “was not a terrorist, in my opinion. He was a businessman.” She added that she felt the mandatory 25-year sentence she was forced to impose was too high and that a trade of Mr. Bout for Ms. Griner and Mr. Whelan would be reasonable.

A White House national security spokesman, John F. Kirby, declined to provide more specifics about the U.S. proposal.

“I’m sure you can all understand that it’s not going to help us get them home if we’re negotiating publicly,” Mr. Kirby told reporters. But he seemed to welcome the opportunity to say something beyond months of past official assurances that the administration was working quietly behind the scenes.

“What I will say is that the president and his team are willing to take extraordinary steps to bring our people home,” Mr. Kirby said. “We believe it’s important for the American people to know how hard President Biden is working to get Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan home. We think it’s important for their families to know how hard we’re working on this.”

A senior administration official said Justice Department lawyers, who have long argued against releasing Mr. Bout, part of an institutional reluctance to trade away federal prisoners, voiced initial opposition to the deal but were overruled by Mr. Biden.

Mr. Blinken disclosed the existence of the proposal hours after Ms. Griner testified for the first time about her arrest, telling a Russian courtroom that she had been tossed into a bewildering legal system with little explanation of what was happening and what she might do to try to defend herself.