
The U.S. Senate's top two leaders demanded on Friday that Russia immediately release Evan Gershkovich in a rare bipartisan statement that condemned the detention of the Wall Street Journal reporter and declared that “journalism is not a crime.”
The statement from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., comes as the United States is working to swiftly end what it calls the unlawful detention of Gershkovich, the first journalist to be held on alleged espionage since the Cold War.