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.
been watching the news roll out this morning, it sounds just eerily parallel to what happened to paul. he was arrested by the security services announced it on their website he has given an fsb lawyer so his his own lawyers and able to represent him. he s put into the ford ova, so he s been brought back to moscow from you, catherine byrne. i mean, it s just it s just so much like what we experienced with paul, help our viewers understand? given that context what this newly detained reporter might be going through , based on what you know from paul and his experiences. well i guess. fortunately from mr gerst avicii speaks russian. paul wasn t able to speak russian, but it s still a matter of navigating little affordable detention facility and you know, learning how to access. uh you re the people that you need to get access to. which may be your lawyer. in this case, maybe not a lawyer you can trust, um and waiting for consular access, which may take a day or two for the u. s embassy to
, lawmakers on capitol hill are accusing russia of using this journalist as leverage, and the white house is dismissing the charges. charge of espionage is ridiculous. we cannot that is not accurate, and we find that incredibly ridiculous and so we re going to be very clear about that. cnn s matthew chance starts off our coverage today from moscow. wall street journal news of the arrest was brief on russian state television reporter from the wall street journal was arrested on suspicion of espionage for the united states, the news anchor announces avicii reads now faces 20 years in prison. it was in the russian city of yekaterinburg, 1100 miles from moscow that russia s federal security service former kgb say they terminated the illegal activity of the accredited journalist. they claim he was on