‘I’ll Get Him Released’: Trump Says US Reporter Jailed in Russia Will Be Freed

President Trump expressed doubts about the journalist being released during the current administration, saying, ‘Biden has dealt with Putin very poorly.’

The Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich stands in a glass cage in a courtroom at the Moscow City Court, on June 22, 2023. Dmitry Serebryakov/AP Photo

Former President Donald Trump said he would secure the release of a Wall Street Journal reporter who has been detained in Russia for over a year on spying charges, accusations that the U.S. government has dismissed.

Evan Gershkovich, 32, was arrested on March 29 last year on espionage charges by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). He was detained in Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains, approximately 900 miles east of Moscow, on an official trip allegedly reporting on the Wagner mercenary group.