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NY Post
New York Post
30 Mar 2023


NextImg:Biden’s Griner swap emboldened Putin to snatch WSJ reporter: McCarthy

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called on Russia Thursday to release a Wall Street Journal reporter detained on espionage charges — and suggested the Biden administration’s prisoner swap to rescue WNBA star Brittney Griner may have encouraged Moscow tyrant Vladimir Putin. 

​”Russia needs to release this journalist,” McCarthy (R-Calif.) told Fox News Digital at an event on Capitol Hill. “It just shows what Putin is doing.”

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“And it also shows, when the president pays ransom, they’ll go after and take more Americans,” the speaker said of the detention of Evan Gershkovich.

In December, the US exchanged convicted international arms dealer Viktor Bout, known as “the Merchant of Death,” for Griner’s release from a Russian penal colony. 

Griner had been held for 10 months since her arrest on Feb. 17, 2022 at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport for allegedly smuggling vape cartridges with cannabis oil in her luggage.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy speaks to reporters at the US Capitol on Thursday.
Getty Images

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Reporter Evan. Gershkovich has been detained in Russia.

Reporter Evan. Gershkovich has been detained in Russia.
via REUTERS

McCarthy called on Putin to release the journalist.

McCarthy called on Putin to release the journalist.
GAVRIIL GRIGOROV/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN POOL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

McCarthy said Gershkovich, a US citizen whose parents emigrated from the Soviet Union, had a right to be working in Russia. 

“This is a journalist who has a right to do their job​. And for Putin to try anything else, it shows how deadly he is​,” ​McCarthy said​, adding that what the Russian leader “is doing is against every realm of the law.”​

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The Journal said Gershkovich, 31, lost contact with his editors while on assignment in the city of Yekaterinburg.

The journalist pleaded not guilty to the charges in a Moscow court on Thursday and was ordered held until May 29.​​

The Wall Street Journal called Gershkovich a “trusted and dedicated reporter” and “vehemently” denied the allegations. ​