US charges Russian TV contributor Dimitri Simes with sanctions violations

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday said it had charged Virginia-based Russian television contributor Dimitri Simes and his wife Anastasia Simes with two separate schemes to violate U.S. sanctions.

In one of two indictments, Simes and his wife are accused of laundering funds and violating U.S. sanctions for the benefit of Channel One Russia, a Russian broadcasting station that was sanctioned in May 2022.

In exchange for providing services as a presenter and producer, prosecutors alleged that Simes and his wife received over $1 million, a personal car and driver, a stipend for an apartment in Moscow and a team of 10 employees from Channel One Russia.

In a second indictment, Anastasia Simes is charged with violating sanctions to benefit Aleksandr Yevgenyevich Udodov, a Russian oligarch who was sanctioned in February 2023. She is accused of purchasing art and other antiques for Udodov from various galleries and auction houses in the United States and Europe.

The items were shipped to the couple's residence in Virginia where they were stored until they could be shipped to Russia, prosecutors alleged.

The two indictments were announced just one day after the U.S. took several legal actions against Russia to combat alleged efforts to meddle in the 2024 presidential elections, including charging two employees of the Russian state media network RT and sanctioning RT and its top network editor.

They also came on the same that day the Justice Department announced charges against five members of Russia's military intelligence agency and a Russian civilian over alleged efforts to launch cyberattacks against Ukraine and its allies.

Simes immigrated to the United States in 1973 and later became a U.S. citizen. Though he and his wife maintain a home in Huntly, Virginia, prosecutors said they both remain at large and are believed to be in Russia.

For many years, Simes was best known for his role as the former president and CEO of the Center for National Interest, a foreign policy think tank that has previously advocated for improving relations between the U.S. and Russia.

He stepped down from his role there in 2022 and began serving as a moderator of the Moscow-based show "Big Game" on Channel One Russia.

Simes' role at the Center for National Interest was previously scrutinized by former Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was tasked with investigating whether former President Donald Trump's campaign had colluded with Russia.

Mueller's investigative report highlighted interactions between Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and Simes, including one incident in which Simes provided Kushner a letter laying out talking points about Russia that Trump could use.

Simes was not charged with any wrongdoing following that investigation.

In 2018, Reuters exclusively reported that the Center for National Interest, with Simes at its helm, had secretly tried to arrange meetings between U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve officials and Maria Butina, who was later convicted for conspiring to influence U.S. conservative activists and infiltrate a powerful gun rights group.

She was deported after serving time in a federal prison in Florida and she now serves as a lawmaker in Russia.

(Reporting by Sarah Lynch; Editing by Caitlin Webber and Marguerita Choy)