Did Biden's Griner swap embolden Putin to arrest WSJ reporter? Here's McCarthy's response

US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Friday urged that Russia must release the detained Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gershkovich, jailed on espionage charges. Biden administration’s prisoner swap to rescue WNBA star Brittney Griner "may have encouraged Moscow tyrant Vladimir Putin", he was reported as saying by Fox News Digital. ”Russia needs to release this journalist,” McCarthy (R-Calif.) said, speaking about the Russian-origin American reporter. “It just shows what Putin is doing," he added. 

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

In December last year, Russia released the American WNBA star Brittney Griner in a high-level prisoner exchange with notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, also known as the "merchant of death". Griner is a two-time Olympic gold medalist who was imprisoned in Moscow on drug charges. She was arrested on Februar 17, 2022, at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport for allegedly smuggling vape cartridges with cannabis oil that was found by the Russian agents in her luggage. 

After months of strained negotiations, the Biden administration engaged in the deal that led to the freeing of Russia's FSB agent and most dangerous arms dealer globally. Bout also went on to join the pro-Kremlin far-right Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR). Founded in 1991, the LDPR propagandises the ultranationalist and xenophobic ideology that seeks to unite the so-called countries of the former Soviet Union USSR. 

Spying on Russia’s military-industrial complex in Urals

McCarthy on Friday reiterated that WSJ reporter, 31-year-old Gershkovich is a US citizen whose parents emigrated from the Soviet Union. US House speaker noted that he 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 told Fox news.​ He derided Russian leader Putin, saying what he's doing "is against every realm of the law”​.

Gershkovich was on an assignment in the city of Yekaterinburg when he was detained for spying on Russia’s military-industrial complex in the Urals. He pleaded not guilty to the charges in a Moscow court on Thursday but will be held until May 29 at the Lefortovo pre-trial detention centre. In 1986, KGB officers similarly detained US News & World Report’s journalist Nicholas Daniloff in Moscow on espionage charges.