Trump’s Press Shake-Up Like ‘Early Days’ Of Putin, NY Times Reporter Claims

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New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker argued some ominous parallels between President Donald Trump’s press pool shake-up and the early days of President Vladimir Putin in Russia — though one journalist who fled Moscow after facing Kremlin pressure insists there’s a “hell of a difference.”

In a Wednesday night article, Baker, who served as a Moscow bureau chief in the 1990s, pointed to the case of Yelena Tregubova, a Russian journalist who lost her position in the Kremlin press pool after publishing a book critical of Putin in 2003. Not long after, a bomb exploded outside her apartment, and she fled the country.

“In the scheme of things, it was a small moment, all but forgotten nearly 25 years later. But it was also a telling one. Mr. Putin did not care for challenges. The rest of the press pool got the message and eventually became what the Kremlin wanted it to be: a collection of compliant reporters who knew to toe the line or else they would pay a price,” Baker wrote.

The comparison comes as Trump’s administration takes over the press pool rotation at the White House and continues to enforce its barring of The Associated Press following its refusal to adopt Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

Baker acknowledged the U.S. is not Russia, but warned that “Trump’s Washington is bringing back memories of Mr. Putin’s Moscow in the early days.”

“The news media is being pressured. Lawmakers have been tamed. Career officials deemed disloyal are being fired. Prosecutors named by a president who promised ‘retribution’ are targeting perceived adversaries and dropping cases against allies or others who do his bidding. Billionaire tycoons who once considered themselves masters of the universe are prostrating themselves before him,” Baker wrote.

Baker details how Putin “moved to methodically consolidate power, establishing what his advisers called ‘managed democracy’.”

He goes on to cite Russian journalist Yevgenia Albats, who fled her country under the threat of arrest.

“The oligarchs kissing the ring, the lawsuits against the media, the constraints on which media should be in the White House pool, and which are not — all that sounds familiar,” Albats told the Times.

But she also pointed to what she sees as a key difference between the two nations: “You have a working and independent judiciary, and we did not. And this is a hell of a difference.”

Despite that assurance, Baker insisted there is a growing “chill” in Washington.

“Every day someone who used to feel free to speak publicly against Mr. Trump says they will no longer let journalists quote them by name for fear of repercussions, both Democrats and Republicans,” he wrote.