Video: On MSNBC, Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA07) Calls Putin’s Arrest of American Reporter an “absolute horror,” the Point Being to “ensure…that there is no sunlight shed on [Russian] atrocities…in Ukraine and elsewhere”

On MSNBC earlier today, Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA07) talked about Russia’s outrageous detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and other Americans, as well as the theft and leak of classified information by the Air National Guardsman in Massachusetts. According to Rep. Spanberger:

• “[M]ore than 500 journalists worldwide are currently being detained for doing their journalistic work…It’s just an absolute horror what is happening to [Evan Gershkovich] and I expect the State Department to work aggressively and tirelessly to get him and every other detained American home.”
• “This is exactly the purpose of a regime like Russia’s regime Putin’s efforts – to ensure that no information is getting out, that there is no sunlight shed on the atrocities that are being managed by the Russian government in Ukraine and elsewhere, efforts to mislead the Russian people about their war that they are waging in Ukraine. And so those who have been bringing light, be they Russian nationals or Americans or other nationalities, those who have the…solemn duty of keeping their neighbors, global or domestic, informed, Russia seeks to silence them. They silence dissent and now they’re silencing journalists, and it is absolutely certainly antithetical to American values.”
• On the Air National Guardsmen in Massachusetts who leaked classified material, Rep. Spanberger said: “I think there’s multiple questions here. Certainly was he given access to something that he shouldn’t have had access to? Or in the event that he might have just been able to gain access because of his IT know-how, what precautions were not in place in this circumstance that there weren’t red flags, that this man who might have been accessing information, even if he had access to it and rightful access to it…how was he able to do that kind of outside of his job function. And those are some serious questions that…I have as a member of the intelligence committee as we conduct oversight on this issue. Because we have to understand how he was able to gain access to this information, what efforts he was able to undertake on the system, so that we can you know learn from this and moving forward ensure that no person with the types of intentions he had of sharing classified information is able to do so. And notably, there has to be an assessment of what…counterintelligence efforts were in place, because this man clearly had anti-government thoughts and intentions, and how was that not putting him on the radar of security individuals within his agency… Russia and the Chinese Communist Party are working against our our interests on a daily basis in a variety of ways, but certainly having access to classified information, whether they distorted it or not, the very fact that it’s been released allows them an extra tool in their toolbox as they seek to either misinform the public or sow disinformation campaigns and division campaigns.”