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