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Report: Donald Trump didn’t help UCLA players get out of Chinese jail

UCLA Press Conference

LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 15: LiAngelo Ball and Cody Riley (L) of the UCLA Men’s Baskeball team speak to the media during a press conference at Pauley Pavilion on November 15, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. Ball, Riley and Jalen Hill have been suspended from the team after allegedly shoplifting while on a school trip to China. (Photo by Josh Lefkowitz/Getty Images)

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This is how crazy college basketball has been during the 2017-18 season: Did you remember that three UCLA players, including LaVar Ball’s middle son LiAngelo, were arrested in China for shoplifting and, according to the president himself, had to be rescued by Donald Trump during his trip to the country.

Well, they were.

And, as it turns out, LaVar Ball was right when he said that the president did nothing to help get Gelo out of jail. The way the story was told by the New York Times in November is that Trump, while meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping, “intervened” to get the police in Hangzhou to let the players leave.

But that’s not really how it played out, according to a story from ESPN:

“The players were already checked into the hotel before the public discovered they were arrested,” a team source said. “They also were not under house arrest. It was our decision to keep them at the hotel until the situation was resolved. The charges were dropped, they weren’t reduced, and that happened two days before we heard from Gen. Kelly.”

Remember when Trump tweeted “I should have left them in jail”?

Interesting.