President Biden called the arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in Russia ‘totally illegal’ Tuesday, one day after the State Department designated him as ‘wrongly detained.’

Biden also spoke with Gershkovich’s family while on Air Force One en route to Northern Ireland for a state trip Tuesday, White House officials said. 

‘We’re making it real clear that it’s totally illegal what’s happening, and we declared it so – it changes the dynamic,’ Biden told reporters before departing for the trip. 

The ‘wrongly detained’ designation frees up different federal agencies to work collaboratively across the government toward Gershkovich’s release. 

He was detained March 29 in Yekaterinburg, the fourth-largest city in Russia. Russian authorities formally charged him last week with collecting ‘information constituting a state secret about the activities of an enterprise within Russia’s military-industrial complex,’ according to Russian state media outlet Tass. 

Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal, and U.S. officials categorically deny the spying charges. 

Attorneys hired by Dow Jones visited Gershkovich, whose parents left the Soviet Union for the U.S. in the 1970s, last week at the infamous Lefortovo prison in Moscow. 

‘Psychologically it’s very difficult,’ Andrei Soldatov, a Russian journalist who was repeatedly interrogated at the prison for his coverage of the country’s secret services, told Fox News Digital. 

‘The history of this particular prison, many, many people were killed in the 1930s and 1940s during Stalin’s purges, so this kind of thing creates a huge psychological pressure on you, and it doesn’t help that Evan was so into Russian culture and Russian history, so maybe it would be better for someone who isn’t familiar with it.’

Wall Street Journal Editor-in-Chief Emma Tucker said last week that Gershkovich is in good health despite the conditions. 

‘Evan’s health is good, and he is grateful for the outpouring of support from around the world. We continue to call for his immediate release,’ she wrote in a message to the newsroom. 

Fox News Digital’s Joseph Wulfsohn and David Rutz contributed to this report. 

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin briefed reporters on the leaking of dozens of sensitive and highly classified documents Tuesday, saying they were ‘somewhere in the web.’

‘Well, they were somewhere…in the web and where exactly and who had access at that point, we don’t know. We simply don’t know at this point,’ Austin said.

Fox News learned earlier Tuesday through conversations with a variety of American defense and intelligence officials that as many as 53 documents were posted online, which were dated between Feb. 23 and March 1. 

The documents, officials told Fox News, may have come from outside the Pentagon.

Austin addressed the leak at the beginning of a news conference with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo and Philippine Officer in Charge of the Department of National Defense Carlito Galvez, regarding the additional sites being established on the island nation to help facilitate training opportunities and improve disaster response.

Austin told reporters he was first briefed about the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive and classified material on the morning of April 6.

‘Since then, I’ve been convening with senior department leaders daily on our response, and I’ve directed an urgent cross department effort,’ he said. ‘We’ve referred the matter to the Department of Justice (DOD), which has opened a criminal investigation.’

One reporter asked him how he was only just made aware of the documents a week ago when leaked classified documents from the Pentagon had been posted online for months.

Austin told the reporter the documents his department was aware of were dated Feb. 28 and March 1, adding that he did not know if there are other documents that were online before those dates.

‘These are things that we will find out as we continue to investigate,’ he said. ‘We take this very seriously and will continue to investigate and turn over every rock until we find the source of this and the extent of it.’

Austin said he could not say much more about the leaked documents because of the open investigation.

LEAKED PENTAGON DOCUMENTS PAINT GRIM PICTURE OF UKRAINIAN AIR DEFENSE SUPPLIES 

‘Nothing will ever stop us from keeping America secure,’ Austin said.

The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to questions regarding the timeline of the leak and why Austin was notified of the leak weeks after allegedly being posted.

The briefings from the DOD are typically distributed to anywhere between 1,000 and 5,000 people with necessary security clearances and include details on the war in Ukraine and battlefield assessments.

DOD briefings are also delivered electronically on secure iPads, and if printed out, investigators can track where they were printed from because they must run through secure printers that are often numbered.

Fox News learned that within the classified documents published online, there is intelligence that was not part of the DOD briefing books that appears to be produced by agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency.

Milancy Harris, the deputy under secretary of defense for intelligence and security, is leading the Pentagon’s internal investigation, coordinating with the DOD’s office of Intelligence and Security, Public Affairs, Office of General Council, Legislative Affairs and the Joint Staff. 

A defense official said each agency will have their own point person for the investigation, and that there is not yet any one person leading a whole interagency effort. 

Greg Norman and Jennifer Griffin of Fox News contributed to this report.

Democratic Massachusetts House Speaker Ronald Mariano unveiled a $654 million tax cut proposal Tuesday, aiming to provide relief for seniors, renters, businesses and wealthier homeowners.The plan would increase to $1.1 billion in relief come 2026.’This whole competitiveness issue is real as we face challenges from states like North Carolina,’ Mariano said, noting Americans’ continuing migration from tax-heavy blue states.

Massachusetts House Speaker Ronald Mariano on Tuesday unveiled a $654 million tax cut proposal for the 2024 fiscal year aimed at helping seniors, renters, businesses and wealthier homeowners while rewriting the law that sent about $3 billion back to taxpayers last year.

The plan, which would increase to $1.1 billion in tax relief for the 2026 fiscal year, includes a number of proposals the Democratic speaker said will help make Massachusetts more affordable and competitive.

‘We wanted to have something that we felt impacted all segments of the economy, all segments of our constituency with some fairness and some equity,’ Mariano told reporters Tuesday.

The package would change a series of tax policies, including increasing the estate tax threshold from $1 million to $2 million.

Massachusetts is one of just 12 states with an estate tax and has the lowest estate tax exemption threshold in the country, along with Oregon. Democratic Gov. Maura Healey, who released a $742 million tax relief package in February, would eliminate the tax for estates valued up to $3 million.

The House proposal would also make changes to the 1986 law designed to limit state tax revenue growth and return any excess to taxpayers. The law triggered nearly $3 billion in refunds last year.

The credit is applied to the personal income tax liability on a proportional basis, resulting in higher credits for those who paid more in taxes. The bill would credit an equal amount per taxpayer.

‘That whole package is based on the success of the economy,’ he said of the 1986 law. ‘It only gets triggered when the economy is very, very successful and we wanted everyone to share in that success.’

The House proposal would also combine the child care expenses credit with the dependent member of household credit to create one refundable $600 credit per dependent, double the senior circuit breaker tax credit from $1,200 to $2,400, increase the rental deduction cap from $3,000 to $4,000, and boost the earned income tax credit from 30% to 40% of the federal credit.

The package proposes lowering the short-term capital gains tax rate from 12% to 5%, and phasing in that change over two years.

The bill would also make changes to the state’s stabilization fund — also called the rainy day fund.

Under existing law if the amount remaining in the state’s stabilization fund at the end of a fiscal year exceeds 15% of budgeted revenues, the excess funds must be transferred to taxpayers through one time increases in the personal exemption. The bill would adjust the cap to 25.5%, allowing the state’s savings account to keep more money.

Mariano said some of the tax changes were meant to attract workers and encourage people already living and working in the state not to flee.

‘This whole competitiveness issue is real as we face challenges from states like North Carolina,’ he said.

James Rooney, President and CEO of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce said the group was pleased with changes to the tax code that he said have put employers at a disadvantage to other states.

‘Massachusetts needs to take proactive, meaningful action to ensure that employers and people will start, stay, and succeed here,’ he said.

The House is expected to vote on the proposal on Thursday. The bill then heads to the Senate, which will write their own tax package before hammering out a compromise proposal to send back to the governor for her signature.

Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters is on his way out as Gov. Kevin Stitt’s secretary of education.

Stitt on Tuesday announced in a press release that he is appointing Oklahoma State University professor of education Katherine Curry to serve on his cabinet in the role Walters has held since 2020.

Walters, a Republican, was elected in November as state superintendent of public instruction and will continue to serve in that position overseeing the State Department of Education and K-12 public schools in Oklahoma.

Stitt spokeswoman Carly Atchison said the governor was ‘thrilled with Ryan’s service on the cabinet’ and that he will remain a close advisor to Stitt on education matters.

‘We’re simply adding another player to our team to push the governor’s education freedom agenda forward,’ Atchison said.

Walters’ inflammatory rhetoric accusing teachers of indoctrinating students with liberal ideology and providing access to ‘pornographic material’ has rankled many lawmakers, including Republicans. The secretary of education must be confirmed by the Oklahoma Senate, and it’s not clear that Walters had enough support in the 48-member body.

Curry has been a professor at Oklahoma State since 2011. She has taught masters and doctoral courses in the College of Education and Human Sciences and currently serves as a professor and program coordinator of the Educational Leadership/School Administration Program.

A wealthy former Maine gubernatorial candidate charged with possession of images depicting child sexual abuse reached an agreement with prosecutors in which he’ll spend some time incarcerated, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

The hearing for Eliot Cutler, who previously pleaded not guilty, is scheduled for May 4 in Superior Court, a court clerk said.

Hancock County District Attorney Robert Granger declined to get into specifics but said there ‘will be some level of incarceration’ along with probation for Cutler. Cutler’s attorney, Walter McKee, declined to comment on the agreement.

The 76-year-old Cutler, who remains free on bail, was arrested last year at his waterfront home in Brooklin, a coastal community 130 miles from Portland.

Under the agreement, Cutler is expected to waive indictment and plead guilty or no contest to each of four counts of possession of sexually explicit material of a child under 12, Granger said. Each count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Cutler, a lawyer, ran for governor twice as an independent and used his personal wealth to bankroll both campaigns. He lost by less than 2 percentage points to Republican Paul LePage in a multi-candidate race in 2010. He lost again in 2014.

Years earlier, Cutler served as an aide to the late Democratic U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie, of Maine, and later as former Democratic President Jimmy Carter’s top adviser for environmental and energy issues. Cutler went on to serve as an environmental attorney and helped found a law firm in Washington.

After a career in Washington, the Bangor native later returned to Maine and resided in Cape Elizabeth, where he owned a mansion that he later sold for $7.55 million to a nephew of former President George H.W. Bush.

His fall from grace began with a two-month investigation that started with a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. That led to search warrants for his homes in Brooklin and at another home in Portland that he later sold.

A law enforcement affidavit indicated that Cutler explained to his wife in the presence of investigators that the search warrant was for images depicting child sexual abuse and that investigators ‘would probably find some on one of his computers.’

While on bail, Cutler convinced a judge to let him back online, with restrictions, even though the affidavit indicated he possessed thousands of videos of children being sexually abused.

Indiana lawmakers gave final approval Tuesday to a Republican-backed proposal that would require voters to submit more identification information to obtain mail-in ballots, rejecting arguments that the tougher rules would make voting more difficult for many people.

Indiana House members voted 64-30 along party lines in favor of the bill previously endorsed by the Senate. The vote sends the bill to Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb for his consideration.

Approval of the tighter mail-in voting rules comes after previous attempts failed the past two years in the Republican-dominated Legislature, even as former President Donald Trump and many of his supporters stoked false claims that fraud led to his 2020 election defeat.

The bill which would require Indiana voters submitting a paper application for a mail ballot to include a photocopy of a government-issued identification card or at least two ID numbers, such as their 10-digit driver’s license or the last four digits of their Social Security number.

Bill sponsor Republican Rep. Tim Wesco of Osceola has maintained the step was aimed at increasing voter confidence in elections by putting identification requirements for mail-in ballots in line with those for in-person voting.

The changes would take effect July 1 and be required for mail-in ballots cast in this fall’s city and town elections around the state.

Democratic Rep. Tonya Pfaff of Terre Haute said she believed it was ‘unnecessary to make it more difficult’ for older voters and those in the military to cast ballots by mail.

‘It won’t make elections safer and only serves to hamper democracy,’ Pfaff said.

Voting rights groups argued that the stricter ID requirements aren’t necessary because county election workers already must confirm that a person’s signature on an application matches their voter registration record. Those groups unsuccessfully pushed, instead, for lifting the state’s restrictions on who may cast mail-in ballots as a way of improving Indiana’s low voter turnout rates.

Opponents said they believed the changes would increase the chances for ‘voters to be tripped up because of a bureaucratic problem.’

Some who testified before lawmakers in support of the bill argued that the current signature matching process is not stringent enough and that voters are ‘screaming’ for tighter rules around mail voting.

Gov. Phil Murphy has signed an executive order aimed at prioritizing skills and work experience over college degrees for some state jobs in New Jersey.

The order signed Monday directs the state’s civil service commission to identify jobs that require college degrees and determine which should have hiring guidelines revised to emphasize practical skills and experience over academic attainment.

Officials said hundreds of applicants each year are rejected ‘or dissuaded from applying’ due to educational requirements for state jobs with salaries that can top $120,000 per year.

‘Every American should have the ability to attain a good job with growth opportunities and secure their place in the middle class, regardless of whether or not they have a college degree,’ Murphy said in a statement.

Officials said six other states, including Pennsylvania, have taken similar action to de-emphasize college degrees in hiring.

Former President Donald Trump’s legal team on Monday appealed a court order that required his former vice president, Mike Pence, to testify as part of the Justice Department’s probe into the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to reports.

The appeal came just days after Pence said he would not contest a subpoena to testify for the special counsel, though he had initially argued that the subpoena violated the ‘speech or debate’ clause of the Constitution.

The speech or debate clause protects U.S. lawmakers from being questioned about comments they make while in the House and Senate. Pence argued the clause protected him due to the vice president’s role as president of the Senate.

Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia agreed that Pence was correct in asserting that the speech or debate clause limits what prosecutors can ask of him, so Pence agreed not challenge the subpoena and testify.

But lawyers for Trump are attempting their own appeal of Pence’s court-ordered testimony in a legal filing that remains under seal.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, who filed the subpoena for Pence’s testimony, is looking into both documents and testimony related to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol as well as Trump’s possible mishandling of classified documents after leaving office.

A spokesperson for Pence declined to comment on the Trump appeal.

Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstorm contributed to this report.

The U.S. is very confident it can protect American interests in the Indo-Pacific as the Chinese military surrounds Taiwan, the White House said Thursday.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby offered the assessment to reporters during a Monday briefing. China is conducting extensive and ongoing military drills around the self-governed island throughout the past week, going so far as to simulate strikes on the island this past weekend.

‘How does the U.S. see these latest Chinese military exercises and is the U.S. confident that Taiwan and help from the U.S. could continue to deter China from a military solution?’ a reporter asked. ‘Their saber-rattling as we call it was a lot more than sabers, and it’s more than rattling.’

‘We’re monitoring the exercises closely, as you might imagine,’ Kirby responded, adding that they were a needless reaction to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s recent visit to the U.S. that sparked angry warnings from China.

‘We’re very comfortable and confident that we have in place, in the region, sufficient resources and capabilities to protect our national security interests in the Indo-Pacific,’ he continued. ‘I would add … there’s no reason for tensions across the Taiwan Strait to devolve into any kind of conflict.’

In total, the Chinese military deployed 71 aircraft and nine naval vessels around Taiwan as of Sunday.

The move comes in reaction to Tsai’s trip to the U.S. and her meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last week. The trip was Tsai’s seventh transit of the U.S., and the second time she had met with a U.S. House speaker. Nevertheless, China made threats and warnings ahead of the visit.

Kirby emphasized that China was overreacting to the incident and highlighted Tsai’s past trips to the U.S. and meetings with U.S. lawmakers.

The White House backed up McCarthy’s meeting with Tsai, saying it was not out of the ordinary.

We recently learned a lesson which was more than three decades in the making. 

The lesson partially stems from two seemingly unrelated events.

The world noted the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine at the end of February. And after an air incursion by a spy balloon, saber-rattling over Taiwan and TikTok dance videos blowing up everyone’s phone, the U.S. Congress suddenly grew more serious about China. This culminated in a prime-time House hearing over the winter studying the threat posed by Beijing by a special House committee designed just to study problems between the U.S. and China. 

The Ukraine and China episodes are connected. And they explain a great deal about the Cold War and where the west thought the world was going in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Let’s go back in time.

1989 was a heady period.

It began in the spring when thousands of students and demonstrators crowded Tiananmen Square in Beijing pushing for economic reform, free speech and democracy.

An iconic set of images stands out from Tiananmen Square. A long column of Chinese Type 59 tanks rolls down a massive, tree-lined boulevard near the square. From the left, a lone, unidentified, Chinese man steps out into the street holding satchels in either hand. The man stands stoically as the tanks approach, slowing to a crawl. There is a momentary impasse as the man gestures wildly with his right arm. The tank then maneuvers to the side to drive around the man. But the man gallops to the left, blocking the tanks from passing. The man then stutter-steps, left and right as the tank tries to get around him. ‘Tank man’ finally climbs onto the tank and appears to speak briefly with someone inside the tank. 

He then resumes his human roadblock.

No one really knows what happened to ‘tank man.’

Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping declared martial law to clear the square. It’s unknown exactly how many Chinese were killed or wounded.

But everyone thought this was a seminal moment. The movement by the people was too powerful. Things would eventually trend in a different direction. Perhaps toward democracy.
Then came the fall of 1989. 

The Berlin Wall fell. The Eastern bloc fell. The Soviet Union disintegrated by the end of 1991. 

It was said that ‘western TV signals’ helped undo communist regimes in Eastern Europe. Citizens of those countries would watch reruns of ‘Dallas’ and ‘Miami Vice’ to see how the west lived. It was said that U.S. finally prevailed in the Cold War – not through military might – but with ‘Madonna and Coke.’

McDonald’s opened in Moscow. In the early 1990s, McDonald’s opened more than 4,000 restaurants in China. Business experts noted that at the time ‘one-fifth’ of the world’s potential Coke drinkers and McDonald’s diners resided in China. 

By the late 1990s, even former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev starred in a Pizza Hut commercial.

Experts believed that free trade and capitalism advocated by the west might moderate totalitarian movements and curb dictators. Oppressive regimes would be no match for forces of the market and economic opportunity.

Fast-forward to today.

Russia reverted toward its old ways, punctuated by the death and carnage its war unleashed on Ukraine. 

China is now a cyber-security state. The U.S. Department of Energy believes China may have sparked the coronavirus pandemic, with COVID-19 leaking from a Wuhan lab. Beijing now tracks Chinese nationals on U.S. soil via various ‘police stations’ set up in American cities. We mentioned the spy balloon and TikTok. Military experts believe a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is a high possibility in the coming years.

This is a pretty bleak assessment of the world’s geo-political situation compared to what was anticipated more than three decades ago.

The period the U.S. and the west now enters may be more dangerous than the most icy days of the Cold War. 

‘Over the past three decades, both Democrats and Republicans underestimated (China) and assumed that trade and investment would lead to democracy,’ said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill, the top Democrat on the House China panel. ‘Instead, the opposite happened.’

It’s hard to argue with that assessment.

‘As China’s economy has grown more than ten-fold since gaining access to U.S. and world markets, (China) has among other things, strengthened its authoritarian control at home,’ said Krishnamoorthi. ‘The goal (of China) has become clear, to displace the U.S. and other competitors. Especially in tomorrow’s strategic industries.’

The lesson the U.S. learned? They overstated optimism which brimmed as the curtains fell on the Cold War and democratic movements rustled in China.

The future the west expected in Eastern Europe and China never materialized. It could be argued that the U.S. found itself on a stronger footing near the end of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. That’s because you had two, reasonably equal superpowers. Now, you have a nuclear-armed Russia which eschewed democracy, ruled by an unpredictable Vladimir Putin. That might mean the U.S. and west is worse off in that relationship.

When it comes to China, the U.S. and westernized democracies are definitely worse off. Congress is considering banning TikTok since its technology pierces the privacy of 152 million Americans. There’s a potential threat of war over Taiwan. It’s doubtful the U.S. would sit that one out.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, just visited Taipei. He told colleague Aisha Hasnie that his committee has a ‘license’ to repel an attack militarily with the authorization of a use of force.

‘I think if communist China invades Taiwan, I think that is certainly if the American people support this, the Congress follow,’ said McCaul.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., recently met with Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen in California.

When the Chinese embassy in Washington rebuked American lawmakers for heading to Taiwan and McCarthy huddling with Tsai, the Speaker scoffed that Beijing didn’t dictate with whom he would meet.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has been a thorn for China over human rights since a visit to Tiananmen Square in the early 1990s. To describe the relationship between Pelosi and McCarthy as ‘frosty’ does a disservice to Jack Frost. But Pelosi uncharacteristically applauded McCarthy for meeting with Tsai. Pelosi praised her Golden State colleague saying McCarthy should ‘be commended’ for ‘leadership’ huddling with Tsai. 

Now China is conducting military exercises in supposed retaliation for the recent enclaves between U.S. lawmakers and Taiwanese officials.

Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu accused Beijing of engaging in what he termed ‘cognitive warfare,’ suggesting that the U.S. might not assist Taipei should China attack. 

‘We are not counting on the U.S. to directly intervene in war,’ said Wu. ‘But, if for Taiwan to be able to defend itself, there’s several things we need. One is for the United States to continue to provide defense weapons for us.’

Appearing on Fox, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., declared he’d ‘be very much open to using U.S. forces to defend Taiwan.’

But some Republicans are resistant to the U.S. supporting Ukraine. Most lawmakers from both sides back U.S. help for Taiwan. Where the public stands about American involvement in a shooting war with China is unclear. But don’t forget that there’s significant fatigue from two decades of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. In fact, the Senate just voted to repeal two war authorizations for Iraq, one dating all the way back to the early 1990s.

So reconsider that optimism about the future three decades ago. 

‘For the time being, it’s still up to us to decide if that’s the future we want for our children. But it won’t be for much longer,’ said House China committee chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., at the prime-time hearing. ‘Time is not on our side. Just because this Congress is divided, we cannot afford to waste the next two years lingering in legislative limbo or pandering for the press.’

The future is now. 

And that bright future everyone hoped for 30 years ago may seem a lot darker today.