Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich is going on trial in Russia for alleged espionage offenses on Wednesday, which prompted former President Donald Trump to once again make an apparently baseless promise about being able to secure his release should he be reelected this fall.
Writing on his Truth Social platform, the former president once again pledged that Gershkovich would go free were he to emerge triumphant in the 2024 election.
"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," Trump claimed. "Crooked Joe can’t do anything right, although it is likely that he will pay $BILLIONS, which continues a very bad 'Biden Precedent,' to get Evan home. I got a record 58 hostages brought home, paying next to nothing. Putin has no respect for Biden - and that’s the way it goes!!! Fear not, Evan, I will get you home soon, and you will be safe while there!!!"
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The Kremlin has denied that it has any kind of special deal in place to release Gershkovich that is contingent on Trump's victory.
All the same, special counsel Robert Mueller's report found that the Russian government directly worked to help elect Trump in the 2016 presidential race when its operatives hacked into the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign and gradually leaked out emails via WikiLeaks in October of 2016 in a bid to damage her chances of winning the White House.
Trump openly welcomed assistance from a hostile foreign power throughout the campaign, most infamously when he called on Russia to release any Clinton emails that it may have hacked from the private email server she used while she served as secretary of state.