Former Trump 2016 campaign adviser indicted for work for sanctioned Russian TV

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has charged a Russian-born U.S. citizen and former adviser to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign with working for a sanctioned Russian state television network and laundering the proceeds.

The indictments announced Thursday allege that Dimitri Simes and his wife received more than $1 million and a personal car and driver in exchange for work they performed for Russia’s Channel One since June 2022. The network was sanctioned by the United States in 2022 over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Simes, 76, and his wife, Anastasia Simes, have a home in Virginia and are believed to be in Russia.

“These defendants allegedly violated sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s unlawful aggression in Ukraine,” U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves said in a statement announcing the charges. “These violations harm our national security interests, a fact that Dimitri Simes, with the deep experience he gained in domestic affairs after fleeing the Soviet Union and becoming an American citizen, should have uniquely understood.”

The indictments come at a time of renewed concern over Russia’s attempts to interfere in the upcoming U.S. election using online disinformation and propaganda. On Wednesday, federal authorities announced charges against two employees of the Russian media organization RT, accused of covertly funding a Tennessee company that produced pro-Russian content.

Simes and the Washington think tank he headed, the Center for the National Interest, figured prominently in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible ties to the Trump campaign.

The report recounts interactions that Simes, who was born in the Soviet Union and emigrated to the United States in the 1970s, had with various figures in Trump’s orbit, including his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Before one of those meetings, according to Mueller’s report, Simes sent Kushner a letter detailing potential talking points for Trump on Russia and also passed along disparaging information about Bill Clinton that was then sent to other campaign officials.

According to the report, Simes’ think tank, founded by former President Richard Nixon, helped organize a foreign policy speech at Washington’s Mayflower Hotel at which Simes introduced Trump. Among those present was Sergei Kislyak, then the Russian ambassador to the United States.

Simes was never charged with any crime in connection with the investigation.

Following the report’s release, Simes defended himself in an interview with The Washington Post: “I saw nothing in the Mueller report that in any way indicated any questionable activity on my part or the center.”

A second indictment alleges that Anastasia Simes, 55, received funds from sanctioned Russian businessman Alexander Udodov, who was sanctioned last year for his support of the Russian government. Udodov is the former brother-in-law of Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and has been linked to business dealings with both of them. Udodov has also been investigated for money laundering.

It was not immediately clear whether any of the defendants had an attorney who could speak on their behalf. An attorney who previously represented Simes said he was no longer representing him. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Thursday.

In an interview with The New York Times before the charges were announced, Simes, who appears regularly on Channel One, defended the work he was doing.

“I assumed that what I was saying on Russian television would not be pleasing to the Biden administration, but I also assumed that as long as it was just my opinion and presented as such, it was not something I could be prosecuted for,” he told the paper.

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