US charges former Trump 2016 campaign adviser Dimitri Simes over work for sanctioned Russian TV
WASHINGTON — The U.S. government has charged a Russian-born American citizen and former adviser to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign with collaborating with a network sanctioned by Russian state television and laundering the proceeds.
On Thursday, the Justice Department unsealed charges that Dimitri Simes and his wife received more than $1 million and a private car and driver in exchange for work they did for Russia’s Channel One since June 2022. The network was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2022 over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Simes, 76, and his wife, Anastasia Simes, own a home in Virginia and are believed to be in Russia.
“These defendants allegedly violated sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s illegal aggression in Ukraine,” U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves said in a statement announcing the charges. “Such violations harm our national security interests — a fact that Dimitri Simes, with the deep experience he gained in national affairs after fleeing the Soviet Union and becoming a U.S. citizen, should have been uniquely aware of.”
The charges come amid renewed concern about Russian efforts to meddle in the upcoming U.S. election using online disinformation and propaganda. On Wednesday federal authorities charged two employees of the Russian media organization RT who secretly financed a company in Tennessee that produced pro-Russian content.
Simes, who led the Washington think tank Center for the National Interest, played a key role in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible ties to the Trump campaign.
The report describes interactions that the Soviet-born Simes, who emigrated to the US in the 1970s, held conversations with several Trump inner circle figures, including Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, about foreign policy during the campaign.
According to the Mueller report, before one of those meetings, Simes sent Kushner a letter containing potential talking points for Trump about Russia and disparaging information about Bill Clinton that was then passed on to other campaign representatives.
Simes’ think tank helped organize a foreign policy speech at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, where Simes stood next to Trump and introduced him to the guests, including Sergei Kislyak, then the Russian ambassador to the U.S.
After the report was released, Simes defended himself in an interview with a Washington Post columnist: “I have seen nothing in the Mueller report that would indicate in any way any questionable activity on my part or on the part of the center.” He said the work he did was “not unusual” in the context of what he called partisan efforts to portray Trump as a “foreign agent.”
A second indictment alleges that Anastasia Simes, 55, received money from sanctioned Russian businessman Alexander Udodov. Udodov was sanctioned last year for his support of the Russian government.
If found guilty of the charges, the two face up to 20 years in prison.
Messages he sent to an attorney for Simes and the Trump campaign were not immediately returned Thursday.