White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday declared that when it comes to the Biden administration’s countering of Russian aggression, “We certainly don’t intend to follow the same pattern as the previous administration.”

But at least as U.S. policy pertains to Russian opposition journalist Alexei Navalny, Psaki then did just that — she copied the Trump administration’s strategy of underplaying relevant U.S. intelligence assessments so as to avoid taking immediate action over Vladimir Putin’s recent poisoning and subsequent arrest of Navalny.