The prospect of former President Donald Trump winning a second term in office reportedly played an important part in the prisoner swap with Russia that saw Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and others freed.
One of the German officials involved in the negotiations with Russia indicated that he leveraged the possibility of Trump becoming president again to press Moscow to release the prisoners, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Wolff’s team saw an opening when their Russian counterparts said they wanted to wrap up the deal before the U.S. election in November. Some officials deduced that the Russians were either concerned about an unpredictable Donald Trump coming again to the presidency, or they feared that Scholz would no longer be willing to help a president who rarely misses an opportunity to criticize Germany.
“We then decided to push it to the limit,” a…
