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statement from the vice president of the richardson center for global engagement. it reads in part, governor richardson passed away peacefully in his sleep last night. he lived his entire life in the service of others, including both his time in government and his subsequent career helping to free people held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad. cnn s wolf blitzer joins me on the phone. we appreciate you hopping on. you just spoke with the governor just over a week ago. i want to play a portion of that for our viewers. i know you ve been working closely with britney griner s family to help get her out. i know you went to russia recently, met with top officials there in that effort. what can you tell us about how this deal came together? all right. well, credit has to go to the biden administration, to john finer, the national security council and the president, who made this tough decision to get britney griner out in exchange for boot, who s a bad guy, an arms de ....
us, you know, the prime contact is the u.s. military, the u.n. command, they re communicating with the north koreans. but i think it s important that we find ways to support the family and bring travis king home. richd ardson was nominated f a mobile peace price in recognition of his work. most recently he helped secure the release of wnba player brittney griner, who was being held unjustly for months in a russian prison. i am cautiously optimistic on the griner/wheeler negotiations. i am cautiously optimistic. i think it s going to be a two-for-two. i don t want to get into who i met with. it was senior russian officials, individuals close to president putin. i coordinated with the white house, i ve coordinated as much as i can. but, you know, sometimes they re a little nervous about my doing this on my own, but at the same time we ve had success recently with trevor reed, the russian the american hostage in russia some months ago. richardson was also a democra ....