The Atlantic November 5, 2019

The obstacles to her brother’s release, as Elizabeth would soon discover, were twofold.

No. 1: Paul Whelan was not a perfect victim. “His case is one of those that doesn’t come across as super clear-cut,” a senior congressional official and Russia policy expert, who requested anonymity in order to be candid, told me. “He’s not this Boy Scout on a goodwill mission to Russia who gets kidnapped.”

Paul enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1994 and was a staff sergeant in the Iraq War from 2003 to 2008. But in January 2008, he received a court-martial conviction on charges “related to larceny,” according to his service records. He was accused of attempting to steal $10,000 from the government while serving in Iraq, and using false credentials on a government computer system to grade his own rank-advancement courses. He ultimately received a bad-conduct discharge.

No. 2: the lingering question of whether this guy actually was a spy. At the time of his arrest, Paul was the global head of security for an international automotive-parts manufacturer. He is a citizen of four different countries—the U.S., the U.K., Ireland, and Canada—and keeps up-to-date passports for each. It didn’t matter that immediately following Paul’s arrest, current and former CIA officers batted down suggestions he was working for them, telling reporters that Paul’s court-martial likely would’ve barred him from ever joining the agency, and that the U.S. was unlikely to send an agent abroad without diplomatic cover. Nor did it matter that the Whelans adamantly denied the accusation, or that just days after Paul’s arrest, his FSB-appointed lawyer seemed to suggest to a reporter that Russians had long been monitoring Paul’s activity and saw him as a potential exchange for Russians currently jailed in the U.S.

so people wouldn’t question why he didn’t demand his buddy Vlad release him.
Past bad acts that happened a decade before Russia took him hostage should not even be a factor.
It’s terrifying to think about, but this Imbecile had access to the world’s best intel. They would know if he was a spy or not.
Interestingly, it never bothered him that rapper A$AP Rocky was not a choirboy when he threatened Sweden if they did not release him.

He tried to steal $10,000. Come on, there's a wikipedia entry for Allegations of misappropriations related to the Iraq War.
Just makes me wonder.

...to free Viktor Bout

U.S. asks Russia to free incarcerated ex-Marine Paul Whelan

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A senior U.S. diplomat on Monday called for Russia to free Paul Whelan, a former Marine accused by Moscow of espionage, saying there was no evidence against him and he had committed no crime.

Deputy Chief of Mission Bart Gorman made the pre-Christmas appeal to Russia outside a Moscow prison after he and diplomats from Britain, Canada and Ireland had visited Whelan.

Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports, was detained by agents from Russia’s Federal Security Service in a Moscow hotel room on Dec. 28 last year.

Moscow says Whelan was caught red-handed with a computer flash drive containing classified information. Whelan says he was set up in a sting and had thought the drive, given to him by a Russian acquaintance, contained holiday photos.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-usa-whelan/u-s-asks-russia-to-free-incarcerated-ex-marine-paul-whelan-idUSKBN1YR1JP

I read somewhere that Bolton said he talked to trump about it and he wasn’t interested. Rather odd when at the same time he was bragging about all the other people he had gotten released.
My thoughts are either he was too busy trying to stay in Putin’s good grace and did not want to confront him. OR given that he was being accused of colluding with Russians, someone on his team told him not to do a prisoner swap because it would be a bad political move for him.