U.S. editorial roundup: Saturday, July 27, 2024

Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:

The New York Times

July 19

Russia is silencing journalism

The only surprise in the guilty verdict against Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal correspondent who was arrested in Russia last year on phony charges of espionage, was that it came so quickly. The charge itself was a farce. No evidence was ever made public, the hearings were held in secret, and Mr. Gershkovich's lawyers were barred from saying anything in public about the case.

Mr. Gershkovich's arrest, trial and conviction all serve President Vladimir Putin's goal of silencing any honest reporting from inside Russia about the invasion of Ukraine and of making Russians even warier of speaking with any foreigner about the war.

Independent Russian news outlets have been almost entirely shut down and their journalists imprisoned or forced to leave the country, so foreign correspondents are among the few remaining sources of independent reporting from inside Russia. Mr. Gershkovich's last published article before his arrest, on March 29, 2023, was headlined "Russia's Economy Is Starting to Come Undone" - just the sort of vital independent journalism that challenges Mr. Putin's claims of a strong and vibrant Russia fighting a just war.

Russian prosecutors claimed that Mr. Gershkovich, acting on instructions from Washington, used "painstaking conspiratorial methods" to obtain "secret information" about Uralvagonzavod, a Russian weapons factory near Yekaterinburg, where he was arrested and tried.

The existence of this massive industrial complex is well known, but the charge of espionage allowed Russian prosecutors to keep the entire proceeding secret while fueling Mr. Putin's propaganda about efforts by the United States and Europe to destabilize Russia.

Mr. Putin's crackdown on free expression, especially about the war in Ukraine, is unrelenting. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Russia is the world's fourth-worst jailer of journalists, with at least 22 in detention, including Mr. Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva, a U.S.-Russian dual citizen and an editor with the U.S.-government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Over the past few weeks, the Kremlin has banned 81 European Union media outlets, including Der Spiegel and Politico, for "systematically disseminating false information about the progress of the special military operation" - the only legal way to refer to the war against Ukraine. Russian authorities have also designated The Moscow Times, an English-language publication that now publishes from outside Russia, an "undesirable organization," making it dangerous for anyone in Russia to have any contact with it. Masha Gessen, a Times Opinion columnist, was tried in absentia and sentenced to eight years in prison this week for criticizing the Russian military.

Just as important to Mr. Putin's political aims: He has been able to use Mr. Gershkovich as a hostage, as he did with the American basketball player Brittney Griner, who was freed in 2022 after 10 months in prison in exchange for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer imprisoned in the United States.

There is a sliver of good news here. This trial could have dragged on for years if Mr. Putin had so desired. That it ended just hours after closing arguments strongly suggests that a deal has been reached on swapping the American reporter for a Russian imprisoned in the West. On Wednesday, the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said that the United States and Russia were holding talks on a possible swap. The most likely candidate is thought to be Vadim Krasikov, a Russian assassin serving a life sentence in Germany for the murder of an exiled Chechen commander in Berlin. If a swap happens, we welcome the possibility that Mr. Gershkovich could be quickly released and returned to his family in the United States.

But Mr. Gershkovich has already spent 16 months in detention in Moscow's Lefortovo prison, and the conviction means he would have to serve his sentence in a high-security penal colony. Several other Americans are also being held in Russia, and one or more of them could also be released as part of a deal.

Any celebration over Mr. Gershkovich's potential release is overshadowed by the utter cynicism of Russian authorities' decision to detain him in the first place.

Mr. Putin's police state has made a habit of seizing hostages any time one of its agents is caught. And yet the determination of reporters like Mr. Gershkovich, and the many Russians who are risking their freedom to describe the realities behind Mr. Putin's elaborate myths, has not been crushed. They have no illusions about the risks, but they understand the critical importance of puncturing Mr. Putin's lies. That is journalism, not espionage, and it deserves the unwavering support of the United States and the world.

The Wall Street Journal

July 22

The Secret Service and the attempted assassination of Donald Trump

Editor's note: Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned Tuesday, July 23.

Everyone with a video screen knows about the failure to protect Donald Trump from a would-be assassin in Butler, Pennsylvania. But don't look to Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle for answers because she doesn't have any.

That was the bottom line from a House Oversight Committee hearing on Monday. Ms. Cheatle said the agency failed in protecting the former president - no kidding - but did little to explain the staggering operational mistakes. She couldn't illuminate even basic facts about how a young shooter, apparently acting alone, was able to get an AR-15-style rifle within a few hundred feet of the former president.

We know law enforcement noticed the alleged gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, before the rally began and designated him as suspicious. Local police alerted the Secret Service because of the man's behavior near the magnetometers. Around 5:30 p.m., the shooter was spotted again looking through a rangefinder, a device shooters use to calculate distance to a target.

Those moments should have been enough to transform Crooks from a "person of interest" to an active threat. But that didn't happen, and Ms. Cheatle deflected lawmakers' questions with a bureaucratic defense. "I think we're conflating the difference between the term 'threat' and 'suspicious,'" she said. "An individual with a backpack is not a threat. ... An individual with a range finder is not a threat."

She was wrong about that. Instead of law enforcement questioning and searching him, the gunman continued his amateurish plan unmolested. About 10 minutes before Mr. Trump took the stage, Crooks had climbed atop a building a few hundred yards away with an unobstructed view of Mr. Trump's podium.

The Secret Service has said the building where the shooter perched was outside its security perimeter for the event, but why? When Oversight Chairman James Comer (R., Ken.) asked about responsibility for the roof, Ms. Cheatle said there was "a plan in place to provide overwatch" but didn't provide details.

The Secret Service has acknowledged that its agents should have been in control of the building rather than relying on local law enforcement. This alone is a huge failure. Police provide additional security, but the Secret Service is the protection detail. Agents should be clearing all areas and keeping eyes on risky corners with drones or other surveillance.

In the minutes before he tried to kill Mr. Trump, the shooter was spotted by rally attendees who pointed and shouted to alert law enforcement. Why wasn't the gunman taken out by snipers before he fired into the crowd? Why was Mr. Trump even allowed on stage?

Ms. Cheatle failed to answer those questions, telling lawmakers she needed to wait until the internal investigation is done in some 60 days. Her non-answers managed the rare feat of uniting Democrats and Republicans in calls for her resignation.

At the hearing, progressive Rep. Ro Khanna (D., Calif.) asked Ms. Cheatle if she knew what Secret Service director Stuart Knight did after the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. "He remained on duty," Ms. Cheatle said. Mr. Khanna replied, "He resigned."

The Washington Post

July 22

What Harris needs to do to win the election

With President Biden's exit from the race, Democrats are quickly coalescing around Vice President Harris. Too quickly, arguably: Both she and the country would be better served by a brief, contested nomination process that tested her skills as a presidential campaigner and sparked discussion about where the next generation of Democratic leaders should take the party.

The party seems to have made up its mind, though. So now it's the nation's turn. Fate has presented Ms. Harris the rarest of political opportunities: to start a presidential campaign in the summer of an election year as a fresh, all-but-anointed candidate free to present her vision to all voters, not just to her own party. Though many Americans might already have feelings about their vice president, they are listening now.

To a country that could use reassurance - indeed, to those Americans who like much of Mr. Biden's record - Ms. Harris could start by explaining how much of a reset she would represent.

When Ms. Harris sought the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, she tried to play down her record as a tough-on-crime California prosecutor and embrace the progressive left of the Democratic Party, backing policies that lacked broad appeal, such as Medicare for all. She did not make it out of 2019 before folding her campaign. Mr. Biden prevailed, in both the primaries and the general, after declining to court the passionate minority to whom candidates such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) appealed. Amid much activist mockery of his refusal to give up on bipartisanship or on a return to civility in politics - indeed, on the broad middle of the country - Mr. Biden built a coalition of liberals, voters of color, moderates and ex-Republicans.

In the White House, Mr. Biden's approach helped get substantial bipartisan bills over the finish line, investing in national infrastructure and critical semiconductor manufacturing. He also signed a bill that should have been bipartisan: the nation's most ambitious climate change policy to date.

Ms. Harris should both resist activist demands that would push her to the left and ignore the social media micro-rebellion that will follow. Ms. Harris' pick of running mate could be a revealing early indicator, too. Tapping a politician likely to appeal to the median voter would serve her - and the country - best.

Ms. Harris appears to be showing due respect for Mr. Biden. Speaking Monday at the White House to college athletes who won national championships this school year, she signaled that she intends to run on Mr. Biden's record. "In one term, he has already surpassed the legacy of most presidents who have served two terms," she said. She traveled in the afternoon to Wilmington, Delaware, to deliver a pep talk to Biden campaign staffers, who now all work for her.

This is not to say that Mr. Biden has made no mistakes or that Ms. Harris should run as a Biden clone. The president has sometimes tried to pander to voters with policies such as widespread student debt cancellation or, more recently, nationwide rent stabilization. Mr. Biden has generally picked smart, competent staff - but not always - and Ms. Harris could say which of them she might keep.

More to the point, Mr. Biden's approval rating has been mired in the 30s. Majorities disapprove of the Biden administration's handling of several issues that voters care about most, including inflation and immigration.

Ms. Harris might look at those numbers, and the complexity of the issues, and be tempted to ride a glide path to the nomination, taking few risks between now and when delegates vote in August. She should do the opposite. She could deliver a detailed national address and take substantive questions from journalists, hold a televised town hall to engage directly with voters and give interviews after rallies in battleground states. She could even take part in forums with fellow Democrats to showcase that the party is more than any one individual. The goal is to emerge from vice-presidential muddiness to presidential sharpness.

A change in messenger might help convince people that, say, the president's handling of the Ukraine war has actually been strong or that the economy is, in fact, humming. It also allows the Democratic ticket to sketch its vision. The pen is in Ms. Harris' hand.