Former Trump Adviser Named in DOJ Russian Media Probe

Former Trump campaign adviser Dimitri Simes has been charged with violating U.S. sanctions and laundering money, according to Simes’ indictments released Thursday.

Simes, 76, is accused of participating in a “scheme to violate U.S. sanctions for the benefit of sanctioned Russian broadcaster Channel One Russia and to launder funds obtained from that scheme.” Simes, along with his wife Anastasia, 55, reportedly received “over $1 million, a personal car and driver, a stipend for an apartment in Moscow, Russia, and a team of ten employees from Channel One Russia.”

Both were charged with “one count of conspiracy to violate (International Emergency Economic Powers Act), one count of violating IEEPA and one count of conspiracy to commit international money laundering,” in the first indictment. However, the FBI added, “They remain at large and are believed to be in Russia.”

The DOJ alleged that as early as May 25, 2018, Simes had “entered into a contract with Channel One Russia” to produce a show called The Great Game at a salary of $67,814 per month, which has totaled to $3,590,000 in payments through the duration of the contract.

Simes was allegedly in contact with multiple officials in the Russian government, including one individual in the Russian presidential administration and one in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Simes and his wife allegedly were paid by a person, described as “Rosbank employee 1,” more than $1 million, which led to some accounting difficulties.

“I’m now considering the possibility of filing taxes in advance,” Anastasia wrote to an unnamed individual in August 2022, days after she had received money from the Rosbank employee. “The difficulty is that our current accountant doesn’t want to work with us, because no one wants to have anything to do with income from Russia.”

The second indictment alleges Anastasia bought art for Dagestani billionaire oligarch Aleksandr Yevgenyevich Udodov, known in Russia for his business called Mushroom Rainbow. Udodov was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in February 2023. “In return” for buying the art for Udodov, “Anastasia Simes was reimbursed and received a service fee” of approximately $220,000.

Anastasia and an associate of Udodov “maintained an Excel file (Art Spreadsheet) that listed items purchased for Udodov, a description and photograph of each item, the cost of each item, and the total number of items intended for Udodov. Over 900 items on the Art Spreadsheet were designated for Udodov.”

In total, the FBI estimated that between September 2023 and May 2024, Anastasia “stored 140 items intended for Udodov in” their home. Other items were allegedly shipped to an art house in the United Kingdom via a German shipping company by Anastasia and an associate.

RIA Novosti via Reuters

Among the works were Karl Friedrich Christian Welsch’s painting Lake of the Four Cantons, which recently sold at auction for between $2-4,000, according to HiBid.

Simes fled the Soviet Union in the ’70s after being expelled from Moscow State University twice for protesting the USSR’s involvement in the Vietnam War. He worked under President Richard Nixon as an unofficial foreign policy adviser before becoming an adviser for Trump during the 2016 election. Since then, Simes has hovered around the Trump orbit, being named in the Meuller report over a hundred times and being a close confidant of Jared Kushner.

Simes, the CEO of the Center for the National Interest, was described to have “many contacts with current and former Russian government officials,” in the Meuller report. Simes and Kushner reportedly met with Henry Kissinger in March 2016 and months later, a memo called “a new beginning with Moscow,” authored by Simes was sent to Jeff Sessions. Simes then sent a “Russia policy memo” to Kushner in August.

The FBI previously raided Simes’ Huntly, Virginia, property in August 2023, although no further details were given by the FBI at the time.

Simes is alleged to have attended a closed-door meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June 2022, according to Russian state media organization, TASS. Simes also reportedly met with Putin in 2015.

Simes has also reportedly had repeated interactions with Maria Butina, who was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison after she admitted to conspiring to act as a covert Russian agent in 2019. Butina was a close associate of then-Russian Central Bank official Alexander Torshin.