ahead. i ll speak with the family of paul weiland, another american, the kremlin has locked up on espionage charges and a group of military families gets the tragic news. nine service members killed when two black hawk choppers crashed. cnn has a crew right near that save. plus tension in the house from paper tossing to hallway shouting in your face. debates are getting heated on the hill. welcome to the lead. i m pamela brown in for jake tapper, and we start today with our world lead. top u . s. officials are strongly criticizing russia after an american reporter was detained on charges of spying. evan gersh covic appeared in a moscow court today accused of trying to steal russian state secrets. his employer, the wall street journal, says it quote vehemently denies those claims. but now gorshkov itch faces up to 20 years in prison. and today , lawmakers on capitol hill are accusing russia of using this journalist as leverage, and the white house is dismissing the charges.
peru is a country that s historically driven men mad, mad for gold, for coca, for its magical, ancient history. but now, there s something else drawing outsiders to its hidden mountain valleys. we love this stuff. we obsess about it, gorge on it, and fetishize it. i m talking about chocolate. once a common treat, it s now becoming as nuanced as fine wine, making the pursuit of the raw, good stuff all the more difficult. i m joining that hunt in remotest peru, but not before i ve re-immersed myself in the booming lima food scene. i took a walk through this beautiful world. felt the cool rain on my shoulder. found something good in this beautiful world. i m in peru with this guy, eric ripert. the guy was looking at us. he went into the tree. that s funny. chef of the world-famous restaurant, le bernardin, in new york, to look at where chocolate comes from, particularly our chocolate. so that s why we re in peru. but before we get all indiana jones, we re spending so
meeting moments ago, symbolically at the reagan library is beijing warns the chinese government will quote resolutely fight back plus one day after donald trump s arrest and arraignment in new york. two major developments in the federal case investigating him one a cnn exclusive the grand jury testimony. revealing the trump was warned he could not legally sees voting machines, plus the decision from his vice president, mike pence that could set up his own historic testimony before the special counsel. welcome to the lead. i m jake tapper, and we start with the world s superpowers on edge and potentially provocative show of solidarity between democracies. moments ago, taiwan s president, sighing when wrapped up a news conference with us house speaker kevin mccarthy on the republicans home turf in california in the chinese government is not happy about it. the top official in beijing warning that size visit could lead to a quote serious unquote confrontation with the united sta
they re often guided by the practice of the past. so if this sink seems like a throwback to the past to probably is ceviches being detained in the same center, where they detained you in 1986, a place that has a long, intimidating history that dates back to stalin s purges. if evan could hear you right now , um, what would be your message or advice to him as he sits, essentially in the same place, you said. well when i was in that prison, uh, the one thing that i did not have any access to was information from the outside. i got information from visits from my wife. and so i think one of the things that he could do is demand. to be informed about what s going on in the outside world, and they probably won t comply with that. but you make the demand anyway. do you think there s anything to
brittney griner and those resources don t exist anymore, and it s not clear whether they ve been able to find new resources that could bring paul home. i think the concern we have right now, obviously with mr gerst ceviches arrest today is that they have not been able to deter the kremlin from arresting more americans and charging them with espionage. and so certainly my hope is tinged by that. all right, david whelan. thank you. and best of luck to you and your family. i hope that you hear from paul soon. i want to bring in to russia. experts evelyn farkas is the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for russia , ukraine and eurasia and tom firestone, who served as a legal advisor at the u. s embassy in moscow. evelyn, i want to start with you just to get your reaction of what we just heard from david whelan. yeah i mean, pamela, i m afraid that this is extortion. as he said the russian government is looking to make a swap. probably we know that very recently, one of their spie