The funny thing about the spy swap story, is the irony.
The officials state they wanted to pick up all the suspects because, among many reasons, was the fact that one of the suspects was scheduled to fly to Russia. U.S. officials feared he would not return to U.S. and instead remain in Russia if their intelligence operatives realized he was compromised.
So, we arrest this guy before he flies off to Russia so that we can...fly him to Russia a week later.
It’s like that Mitch Hedberg joke: “…They catch the fish and then let it go. They don’t want to eat the fish, they just want to make it late for something.”
MARK WIBERG 
Or put another way, the ironic thing about the spy swap story, is the funniness.
This just demonstrates what I’ve been thinking all along; you and I should go to Washington and get jobs in the Gummint while the talent pool is clearly quite so alarmingly thin….in your case go work for State while I’ll head on over to the Pentagon.
One more thing, my family has roots in the intelligence community (dad worked in the Puzzle Palace) and just so you know spy-swapping is a bit more kinky than most people realize.