LiAngelo Ball, Cody Riley, and Jalen Hill were arrested for shoplifting, in China, during a UCLA basketball team trip back in the second week of November 2017. A little over a week later they were on their way home. Donald Trump made a big to-do about how he was personally involved in this bit of diplomacy.

x Now that the three basketball players are out of China and saved from years in jail, LaVar Ball, the father of LiAngelo, is unaccepting of what I did for his son and that shoplifting is no big deal. I should have left them in jail! Ã¢ÂÂ Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2017

Then the New York Times ran with a story titled How “Trump Helped Liberate U.C.L.A. ‘Knuckleheads’ From China,” that seemed to support Trump’s point of view.

Mr. Kelly said Mr. Trump’s intervention, as well as diplomatic efforts by State Department diplomats, led to the reduction of the charges to the equivalent of misdemeanors as well as the release of the three players to their hotel, where they were placed under temporary house arrest. It was there that Mr. Kelly talked to Chris Carlson, an associate athletic director at U.C.L.A., and to the players on the phone the next day.

ESPN has a longer breakdown of what happened in China with the UCLA team.