American Private jet pilot Brad Schlenker’s feeling a little buyer’s remorse over his Trump vote, telling Semafor that the G.O.A.T. 45-47 administration has been “useless” in getting him and his co-pilot out of legal trouble in Guinea they’ve been stuck with for months on accusations that kept changing depending on how quickly the previous one fell apart due to lack of, you know, supporting evidence.

“I voted for this administration because they were supposed to protect Americans,” said Schlenker, 66, whiloe his 33 year-old co-pilot Fabio Espinal Nunez did not issue a similar comment. The two had been at the helm of a leased Gulfstream IV in late December, ferrying a family of five from Suriname to Dubai when they landed in Conakry for a refueling stop typical for the route. Suddenly dozens of armed soldiers pulled up, swarmed the plane, and took the two airmen to jail where they rotted for three months until being granted bail on charges that were unfalsifiable enough.

First it was drug smuggling, which somebody in the small west African state’s military junta fucked up and forgot to bring to plant on the plane. Then it was unauthorized landing, undone by the transcripts of air traffic controllers clearing them to land. Finally it was suspicion of flying a stolen aircraft which is also most likely bullshit because Schlenker says checked the tail number’s FAA file and found no red flags and even if it was somehow stolen how the hell is that a freelance pilot flying a charter’s problem? Guess he and Nunez are about to find out because unless the regime decides one of their voters is worth potentially jeopardizing some neocolonial mineral extraction deal being run by a syndicate of former Trump State Department officials, they’re headed for trial.

Schlenker told Semafor that he had been told, by a party he refused to identify, that “if someone from the State Department had simply called, if Marco Rubio or Pete Hegseth or someone else just picked up the phone, we’d be out of here.” And yet there they are. In Conakry. Maybe for life.

The Semafor article didn’t mention what happened to the passengers. It would seem extremely unlikely it took them more than six hours to get to Dubai after the minor inconvenience.