State Dept Pressed On US Citizens Held In Russia, Reaffirms Commitment To 'Bring Them Home'

3 months ago

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller was asked about the detainment of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

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Transcript

00:00Evan Grishkovich goes to trial tomorrow.

00:02What is your expectation?

00:03MR.

00:04RATHKE.

00:05So I certainly don't expect a free and fair trial, given that these are charges that never

00:08should have been brought in the first place.

00:11What I can say with respect to the case is that personnel from the embassy are traveling

00:17to be on hand for the trial, and it's unclear whether they will actually be able to attend

00:22or not or whether they'll be able to attend portions of it.

00:25If there are portions of it that are open and other portions that are closed, but we

00:27intend to be there to the extent we can, given travel restrictions by the Government

00:33of Russia, and we tend to be in the courtroom whenever we can.

00:35QUESTIONS FROM THE PRESS And that's not the ambassador?

00:36Those are other officials?

00:37MR.

00:38RATHKE I'll let the embassy speak to who it is that's

00:39actually going to be there.

00:40QUESTIONS FROM THE PRESS And do you have any sense of how long this

00:43could trial?

00:44MR.

00:45RATHKE I don't.

00:46I don't.

00:47We honestly just don't know.

00:48QUESTIONS FROM THE PRESS Let's follow up on that.

00:49MR.

00:50RATHKE Yeah.

00:51QUESTIONS FROM THE PRESS So the embassy staffers were allowed to travel

00:52to get a free trial?

00:53MR.

00:54RATHKE To travel, which is not the same as being able

00:55to attend the proceeding itself.

00:56We will have a statement tomorrow, and then after the proceedings we will have a statement

00:59where we make clear what it is we were actually able to do in terms of observing.

01:04QUESTIONS FROM THE PRESS Is it your impression Russia's main motive

01:06in this case, in terms of trying him, is to, let's say, to trigger a prisoner's trial?

01:13MR.

01:14RATHKE So I'm not going to speak to their motivations

01:16in apprehending him in the first place, but it's clear that it's an attack on journalism.

01:24They have made false claims about his behavior, about his actions, about associations with

01:29the United States Government that simply aren't true.

01:32So all I can say is that we are going to continue to try to secure the release of Evan Gershkovich

01:37as well as Paul Whelan, do everything we can to try to bring them home.

State Dept Pressed On US Citizens Held In Russia, Reaffirms Commitment To 'Bring Them Home'

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