The closed-door espionage “trial” for Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich got underway in Russia this week, though there’s no great mystery as to the outcome. Jay Conti, executive vice president and general counsel for Dow Jones, publisher of the Journal, told the Associated Press that the proceedings are a sham, and it’s hard to imagine how anyone could disagree.
It was against this backdrop that Donald Trump decided to weigh in with yet another message by way of his social media platform. The former president’s missive read in part:
“EVAN GERSHKOVICH, the young Wall Street Journal reporter who is being harshly detained in Russia as his ESPIONAGE TRIAL is about to begin, will be released prior to my taking office if I WIN the Election on NOVEMBER 5th. … Fear not, Evan, I will get you home soon, and you will be safe while there!!!”
The Republican first started pushing this line in late May, sparking a controversy with published comments that largely mirrored yesterday’s message. Two weeks later, apparently pleased with the outrage, the presumptive GOP nominee doubled down, releasing a straight-to-camera video echoing that rhetoric.
Let’s not forget that Gershkovich languished in Russian custody for over a year, during which time Trump said literally nothing. In recent weeks, however, after months of conspicuous silence, the former president seems awfully eager to talk about his certainty about bringing the reporter home.
Fiona Hill, who served as a Russia expert on Trump’s National Security Council, told USA Today earlier this month that his comments undermine U.S. national security in a number of ways.
“There are so many things wrong with this,” Hill said, adding that Trump’s own claims show “that he’s looking at this as a kind of a personal favor, rather than an issue related to U.S. national security. It begs the question of whether he’s been told this by Putin somehow behind the scenes? Is Russia having outreach again with a putative candidate? This gets us back to 2016 all over again.”
Revisiting our earlier coverage, I continue to think there are three possible interpretations of this rhetoric.
1. Trump was guessing at what Putin is thinking. Perhaps the Republican was merely speculating about future events, effectively guessing in a chest-thumping sort of way. If this interpretation is correct, Trump doesn’t know that Gershkovich will be released sometime between early November and mid-January, but the former president expects that based on his assumptions about Putin and the Russian leader’s eagerness to make him happy.
2. Trump has secret insights into what Putin is thinking. In both a recent Time magazine interview and online messages, Trump appeared to speak with great confidence about what, exactly, Putin would do in the coming months. He’s repeatedly used declarative sentences about future events: “Putin is going to release him,” and the Russian autocrat “will do that for me.” It raises the unsettling possibility that the presumptive Republican nominee has direct insights into Putin’s plans, and Trump is simply sharing his benefactor’s intentions.
3. Trump was sending a message to Putin. Maybe Trump wasn’t guessing, and perhaps he has no insights into Moscow’s plans, but it’s possible that the Republican was instead trying to let Putin know about his own preferences — in effect, colluding in plain sight.
As New York magazine’s Jon Chait recently argued, “Perhaps he’s right that Putin ‘will do that for me, but not for anyone else.’ But that is because Putin rightly considers Trump an ally in whose success he is invested. What’s worse is that, by openly signaling to Putin that he does not want Gershkovich to be freed before the election, he is destroying whatever chances may exist to secure his release before then. If Gershkovich goes free prior to the election, Trump would look foolish, and Trump understands perfectly well Putin does not want that to happen.”
Hanging overhead is a question the former president still hasn’t answered: If Trump has unique influence with Putin, and the Russian leader is prepared to release Gershkovich as a favor to the Republican, why doesn’t Trump use that power now and help bring the reporter home immediately?
The presumptive GOP nominee could claim credit, spend the next several months bragging about the feat and bask in the pre-election praise. So why not pick up the phone and use his leverage now?
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
