Foreign policy expert who advised Trump campaign allegedly violated sanctions with $1m Russian TV deal

Longtime Russia expert and Trump 2016 campaign adviser Dimitri Simes allegedly violated U.S. sanctions by working as a high-paid presenter at sanctioned Russian state TV station Channel One Russia.

There, he was lavished with more than $1m, a personal car, and an apartment in Moscow, according to a pair of federal indictments unsealed on Thursday.

“These defendants allegedly violated sanctions that were put in place in response to Russia’s illegal aggression in Ukraine,” U.S. Attorney Matthew M Graves said in a statement to the Association Press.

“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 uniquely appreciated.”

Simes, 76, was the longtime head of the Center for the National Interest think tank and advised the 2016 Trump campaign on foreign policy.

Contacts between Simes, the center, Russian officials, and the Trump campaign were described in the Mueller report into Russian interference in US politics, though Simes was not accused of any wrongdoing.

The Independent has contacted Simes’s long-time lawyer, Channel One, and the Russian government for comment.

The Trump campaign pointed The Independent towards posts Trump made Thursday on Truth Social, where he claimed, “Kamala Harris and her Department of Justice are trying to interfere in and suppress the Election in favor of the Democrats by resurrecting the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, and trying to say that Russia is trying to help me, which is absolutely FALSE.”

Simes began working with the TV network in 2018 and was allegedly aware of the sanctions levied against it in 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine, but continued to work with the channel, hosting the program The Great Game.

At Channel One, he got direction about the nature of his coverage from network officials, met with Russian government members, and spoke to Vladimir Putin by phone in 2023, according to the indictment.

The policy expert also allegedly tried to launder the proceeds of his work for the state network.

Last month, following an FBI search at his estate in Virginia, Simes said he was unaware of the allegations against him and accused U.S. officials of seeking to intimidate him.

“It clearly is an attempt to intimidate, not only somebody from Russia, but just anyone who goes against official policies and particularly against the deep state,” he told the Russian network Sputnik.

In his interview with Sputnik, Simes added that he hadn’t been in the United States since 2022.

A second indictment alleges Simes’s wife Anastasia separately violated US sanctions by buying art and antiques for Aleksandr Yevgenyevich Udodov, a Russian oligarch sanctioned in 2023 for his management consulting work on the Russian economy.

The indictment alleges Anastasia Simes bought more than 900 artworks from over 30 arthouses and galleries across the U.S. and Europe, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase the works, which were stored at the residence in Virginia for later shipment to Russia. In exchange, she allegedly received a fee.

The Independent was unable to contact Udodov for comment.

The indictments, heard before a grand jury in June, come amid renewed scrutiny of alleged Russian influence over U.S. public affairs in the run-up to the 2024 election.

In August, the FBI reportedly searched the home of Russia Today contributor Scott Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector and critic of U.S. foreign policy.

“I’m being targeted because I have made an effort to try to improve relations between the United States and Russia, to try to bring about arms control. To try to bring about peace,” Ritter told the Delmar, New York-based Spotlight News site the day of the search. “Apparently, someone in the U.S. government takes umbrage at this.”

This week, federal law enforcement agencies also revealed they have seized 32 Russian-backed websites that prosecutors say were designed to spread disinformation and boost the 2024 Trump campaign, and charged two employees of Russian state network RT with launching a $10m propaganda scheme using popular right-wing social media influencers.