Former Trump adviser Dimitri Simes was charged on Thursday for work conducted on behalf of sanctioned Russian state TV company Channel One, and for accepting and laundering more than $1 million in compensation, the Department of Justice said.
Other compensation included a personal car and driver, a stipend for an apartment in Moscow and a team of employees, a statement from the DOJ alleges.
“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, per the Associated 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.”
The company was sanctioned in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and violations of those sanctions — with which Dimitri and his wife Anastasia Simes are charged with three each — carry a penalty of up to 20 years in prison per count.
Simes, who worked with the Trump campaign in 2016 to organize foreign policy speeches via his think tank, the Center for the National Interest, was also heavily featured as a person of interest in Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Per Mueller’s report, Simes advised Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner on potential talking points on Russia for the then-candidate and passed information about Bill Clinton which was shared with other campaign officials, per the Associated Press.
According to the DOJ, Anastasia Simes was additionally charged for working with sanctioned oligarch Aleksandr Yevgenyevich Udodov, violating the sanctions by purchasing art on Udodov’s behalf. The DOJ added that the pair hadn't been arrested and were likely out of the country.
The charges came amid a slew of DOJ indictments this week against Americans working alongside Russians to promote the interests of the country illegally as it continues to wage its invasion against Ukraine, including an indictment involving an American conservative media group that took $10 million from Russia Today.
