Protesters stormed the stage during WaPo interview with Secretary of State Blinken

Drew Angerer/Pool via AP

World Press Freedom Day was celebrated this week. One event featured an interview conducted by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who interviewed Secretary of State Antony Blinken. As they spoke, protesters stormed the stage and briefly interrupted the interview. They were supporters of WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange. Ignatius quickly painted the protest in the best possible light.

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Protestors calling for the freedom of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who is fighting extradition from the U.K. to the U.S. on espionage charges, stormed the stage during the interview with Mr. Blinken. “We’re here to celebrate freedom of expression, and we just experienced it,” said Post columnist David Ignatius, who was interviewing Mr. Blinken, according to a Post transcript. The U.S. charges against Mr. Assange are related to the publication by WikiLeaks more than a decade ago of a trove of classified material. Supporters of Mr. Assange have said the charges are an attack on press freedom.

Blinken was addressing the detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is based in Moscow. He said the United States is “intensely engaged” in trying to secure Evan’s release. He is currently jailed in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison on charges of alleged espionage. There is no validation put forth that the reporter is a spy. The Wall Street Journal, the Biden administration, and the Gershkovich family all deny any such claim. He was just a reporter on a work trip to Yekaterinburg, having dinner in a steakhouse when he was arrested and driven off. He is in the same prison that another American hostage, Paul Whelan, was held when he was first arrested, also on made-up espionage charges.

Putin wants to use Evan as a bargaining chip to secure the release of Russian prisoners, that part is clear. Evan is the first American journalist arrested in Russia since the end of the Cold War. That is a big dramatic move and with Putin’s war in Ukraine raging on, it is all about making a statement. Putin wants to show he is not backing down from a confrontation with the United States, the top supporter of Ukraine both financially and with military equipment. It’s a f-u moment for Putin to the United States and Joe Biden, in particular. Putin watched as Biden desperately agreed to a prisoner swap for the release of WNBA basketball player Brittney Griner in exchange for the release of a notorious arms dealer, Viktor Bout. As jaw-droppingly crazy as that deal was, Biden did it. Biden left behind Whelan and other Americans in Russia, including 62-year-old American school teacher Marc Fogel. Did Griner’s race and career have anything to do with her priority over the others who have been held longer in a Russian prison? You can draw your own conclusions.

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From the beginning, it’s been good to know that the Biden administration is taking seriously Evan’s case but is it because he is a journalist with a high-profile newspaper? He was declared “wrongfully detained” by the State Department in record time. Are Whelan, Fogel, and others being given the same attention? Or, since it is re-election time, is a reporter being given special treatment since his colleagues are so publicly supportive of his release? Maybe that’s a cynical way of looking at his case but it does present some questions. I want all of them brought home as quickly as possible.

So far, there has been little progress for Evan.

Mr. Blinken said he has spoken to Russia’s foreign minister about the matter and noted that President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin have a channel to discuss such cases.

“So we’re engaged,” Mr. Blinken said Wednesday, speaking at a World Press Freedom Day event held by the Washington Post. “I wish I could say that in this moment, there was a clear way forward. We don’t have that in this moment, but it’s something that we’re working every single day.”

Mr. Blinken said Russia is “wrongfully detaining people, using them as political pawns, using them as leverage in a practice that is absolutely unacceptable.”

Putin will wait for another good deal via a prisoner swap. He isn’t fearful or intimidated by Joe Biden or Blinken. Putin is going about his merry way and laughing at the ineptness of the feeble American president.

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