Veteran Russian-American political analyst Dimitri Simes faces up to 60 years in jail, on charges brought against him by the US authorities.
The US Department of Justice has accused the 76-year-old – a former advisor to the late US President Richard Nixon, who now hosts a talk show on Russian TV – of sanctions violations and money laundering. His wife, Anastasia, has also been indicted.
Born in Moscow, Simes left the Soviet Union at the age of 26. He had fallen afoul of Leonid Brezhnev-era officials for protesting against the USSR’s involvement in the Vietnam conflict. In the US, he was a professor at Johns Hopkins University. He also ran the Soviet policy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and taught at the University of California at Berkeley and at Columbia University.
Simes then served as President of the Nixon Center and later as president and CEO of the Center for the National Interest, a major Republican-party aligned think tank.
In 2013, Carnegie honored him as a “Great Immigrant and Great American.” He left National Interest in 2022 and returned to Moscow, where he hosts the show ‘The Great Game’ on Russia’s Channel One.
In an interview with Kommersant correspondent Elena Chernenko, Simes has commented in detail on the allegations made by American officials.
- According to the US Department of Justice, you allegedly participated in schemes to “violate US sanctions on behalf of Channel One” and to “launder funds obtained as a result of this scheme,” and your wife allegedly also participated in a scheme to “violate US sanctions” in order to receive funds from a blacklisted Russian businessman. How would you respond to these allegations?
- Lawlessness and blatant lies. A combination of half-truths and outright fabrications. I’m accused of money laundering. But of what, according to the US Department of Justice? It’s from my salary, which went into an account at Rosbank in Moscow, the bank used by Channel One, I transferred some of the money to my bank in Washington. And why do you think? To pay my American taxes [the US has dual taxation for citizens working abroad – RT]!
In my opinion, not only was there nothing illegal about it, there was nothing unethical about it either. They [the US authorities] say that, somehow, I was hiding something. That I could not transfer money directly from a Russian bank to an American bank. That it’s impossible because of American sanctions. So, I had to transfer money through a third bank. This, of course, complicated the process, but there is nothing illegal [about it] in either Russian or American law. It is simply outrageous to call it money laundering.
As for the accusation that I allegedly violated the US sanctions imposed on Channel One, first of all I would like to remind you that there is one thing that the Biden administration does not take seriously. I’m talking about the United States Constitution and the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press. And I insist that everything I have done as a journalist I have done within the framework of the First Amendment of the American Constitution.
Secondly, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the sanctions against Channel One were not approved by the US Congress, it was just a decree from the Treasury Department saying that it was not allowed to do business with Russian federal TV channels. But this ban was very vaguely worded. It could have been interpreted as a prohibition on helping the federal channels in any financial way, through any kind of payment or donation. Or it could be interpreted more broadly as a ban on any interaction.
- How did you interpret it?
- After this decree appeared, I was told that there was a conversation between representatives of the Russian Foreign Ministry and the US State Department, during which the American side explained that the main purpose of these sanctions was to prevent Russian federal channels from receiving Western funding. And they should not affect the work of journalists.
- So you believed that your work at Channel One did not violate US sanctions?
- That’s what I was told. But I was not satisfied. I personally spoke to a senior US administration official about this. I was told that, of course, we do not approve of your work at Channel One, and if you continue to work there, it will not help your reputation and career in America, but this sanctions decree is aimed at curbing the channel’s financial revenues, not at preventing journalists from working.
In other words, I felt that, from the point of view of the US administration, I was doing something undesirable but not something for which I could be prosecuted.
- Have you spoken to lawyers?
- Of course I have. I consulted American lawyers and they had the same point of view. Now I am facing criminal charges, just for doing my job as a journalist.
- You have not been in the US since October 2022. Were you worried that the case might not be limited to a verbal expression of displeasure?
- I had a feeling that there might be a problem. But I wasn’t certain, and I had even less of an expectation that it could lead to a prosecution. I think the White House decided to go ahead and stir up the issue of Russian interference in the American election again. I had nothing to do with any interference and have nothing to do with it. Moreover, I am absolutely certain that there was and is no large-scale interference. And when I hear that charges have been brought against me as part of a campaign against Russian interference in American elections, I have the feeling that this is not only politicized, but completely fabricated.
- Yes, the New York Times, in describing the situation, wrote that the charges against you were ‘part of a broader government effort to thwart Russian attempts to influence American politics in the run-up to November’s presidential election.’
- I work for Channel One and everything I do is, by definition, very open. It’s all in Russian. Channel One does not broadcast in the United States. I could not and cannot influence the American domestic political situation in any way.
As far as interference is concerned, it would probably be more interesting to look at the demands of Ukrainian officials who have been urging the White House to take action against me for a long time.
We are talking about Ukrainian interference at quite a high level.
The “[Andrey] Yermak- [Michael] McFaul Expert Group on Russian Sanctions” [run by Vladimir Zelesnky’s top advisor and a former US ambassador to Russia, to develop recommendations on sanctions] is working on this conspiracy. This is a legalized form of high-level Ukrainian interference in decision-making in Washington.
And I would be very interested to understand how it was that when my house [in the US] was searched [in August], which lasted four days, and things were taken out by trucks with trailers, how it was that on my lawn, according to the neighbors, there were about 50 people, many of whom came not in official cars, as the FBI usually does, but in private cars. And how was it that these people, some of whom later turned up in a shop in a neighbouring small town, somehow spoke Ukrainian? I would really like to understand what role Ukrainian interference in American politics played in this situation.
- Will you and your wife try to fight the charges in an American court?
- I will have to discuss this with my lawyers and until I have spoken to them in detail I will of course not make any decisions. If we have to come to the United States to contest the charges, then no, I am not in the least tempted to do so.
Knowing the methods of this administration and knowing what they are capable of with regard to the former – and possibly future – president of the United States, I mean Trump, I know that an objective consideration of my case is out of the question.
But, of course, this situation is extremely unpleasant for me. My accounts have been frozen, I cannot pay taxes on my house and other related expenses.
At the same time, not only do I not consider myself guilty of anything but I feel as if I am being persecuted by the Gestapo.
And at least from a moral point of view I think I’m doing absolutely the right thing. And I’m going to fight it, I’m going to actively work to make sure that such actions by the Biden administration do not go unpunished.
- It is clear that most of your colleagues in Russia actively support you, but what about in the US? Have your colleagues there reacted in any way to this situation?
- They reacted in a very resounding way – with sepulchral silence. I have not heard anyone condemning me in any way, but I have not seen any support either. My colleagues there are disciplined people, they understand the American situation. Even someone like [prominent American economist and professor] Jeffrey Sachs, who was on my show the other day, has disappeared from leading American TV channels, and even he is not allowed to publish in leading American publications.
I say ‘even him’ because he was considered one of America’s leading economists and political scientists. And even he is cut off from expressing his views there. There is a climate of totalitarian political correctness in the US, where it’s impossible to even discuss the issue of relations with Russia, because as soon as a person starts to say something that differs from the general Russophobic line, they are immediately told: ‘Oh, we’ve already heard that from (Russian President Vladimir) Putin.’
- Some Western media call you a ‘propagandist’ and a ‘mouthpiece of the Kremlin.’
- For them, a ‘propagandist’ and a ‘mouthpiece of the Kremlin’ is anyone who deviates from the ‘correct’ American political line. Not only do I deviate from it in no uncertain terms, I do not accept it at all. As for being a ‘mouthpiece for the Kremlin,’ I am not aware that anyone has appointed me to that position or given me that authority. If you look at the two events in which I participated and in which Putin was present, you will see that both times I argued with him.
- The St Petersburg International Economic Forum and the Valdai Forum.
- Yes. And I have a clear feeling that on Channel One in general I am given the opportunity to say what I want to say. In times of war, of course, there is and can be no complete freedom, and I don’t need to be censored in this respect. I myself know that war is war. But no one has ever given me instructions. I have heard that they exist, but not only have I never seen them, no one has ever said anything like that to me personally.
At the same time, of course, I am interested in the opinion of the Russian authorities. If I were not interested, I would not be doing my job. It would be quite strange to be a TV presenter in a war situation and not be interested in the position of the decision-makers. But here it’s a completely different dynamic. I am the one asking questions to understand the situation and the positions of the decision-makers. But there is absolutely no question of anyone giving me instructions, even in the most veiled form.
- You have, of course, an amazing biography. You were persecuted and even arrested for dissent in the Soviet Union, and now you are facing a huge sentence in the United States, also, one might say, for dissent.
- Yes, but in the Soviet Union I was not given a huge sentence, I was given two weeks, which I served honestly in Matrosskaya Tishina [prison]. Nevertheless, when I left the Soviet Union I was allowed to take with me what belonged to me, even if it was very little. And the main thing is that when my parents – human-rights activists who had been expelled from the USSR by the KGB – left, they were able to take with them paintings and icons that belonged to our family, and even some of their antique furniture.
During the search of our house [in the US] all this was confiscated. At the same time, these things had nothing to do with my wife’s work. These are things that have belonged to us for many years, and in the case of the paintings and icons, for many decades, because they belonged to my parents. And now everything has been taken from the walls in what I can only describe as a pogrom. The roof is broken, the floor is damaged. What has this got to do with a legitimate investigation?
Interestingly, they left my gun in a conspicuous place. In general, the first thing they confiscate in a search like this is your means of communication. But they were not very good at that in my case, because I had not been there for almost two years, and all my devices are with me here. But they found my gun and for some reason they left it in a prominent place. I don’t know, maybe it was some kind of hint to me that I should shoot myself or that they might do something to me, I can’t read other people’s minds. Especially the minds of people with a slightly twisted imagination and a dangerous sense of permissiveness.
- I suppose I have one last question, but it’s a bit of a thesis. Recently, as part of another project, I was digging through the archives, looking at news footage from the spring of 2004, when Sergey Lavrov had just become foreign minister. I was surprised to discover that you were the first representative of the expert community, not just internationally but in general, to be received by the newly appointed minister. You discussed Russian-American relations and Lavrov said at the time that there were no strategic differences between Moscow and Washington, only tactical ones. Twenty years have passed and the sides have only disagreements, tactical and, what is worse, strategic. In your opinion, who is to blame for everything that has gone wrong?
- First of all, thank you for reminding me that I was the first representative of the expert community to meet Lavrov after his appointment as Minister. This was probably not unusual, as I had known him for a number of years when he was Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN in New York.
I was very concerned at the time about how many Russian diplomatic leaders, and not just diplomats but government agencies in general, were willing to play a game of give and take with the US. I was sure that this could not lead to anything good. Lavrov stood out from the others in this respect: of course, he was committed to cooperation with the US at that time, but at the same time he was able to speak in a more confident tone and showed a good, slightly sarcastic sense of humor when dealing with his American colleagues’ open attacks on Russian interests, on Russian dignity.
In 2004, I remember, we had one of the Russian leaders, not Putin, but quite an important person, who spoke at the Center for the National Interest shortly after the American invasion of Iraq. And he said that Russia does not support what the US has done in Iraq and thinks it is dangerous, but will not interfere and will not try to gain political capital at the expense of the US. And he went on to say that maybe if we had a different relationship, a more engaged relationship, we could support America, but we don’t have that relationship and it’s not on the horizon yet. I think that, in 2004, despite, of course, a great deal of dissatisfaction with American actions in Yugoslavia in 1999, Russia had a great willingness to cooperate with the US and a general acceptance that it was the only real superpower.
I have studied Russian policy in detail since the end of the Cold War, and with the exception of [Prime Minister Yevgeny] Primakov’s plane turning over the Atlantic in 1999, I have generally not seen any Russian actions that could have caused serious dissatisfaction within the US. You know that back in 1999, as prime minister, Putin offered the Americans cooperation in the fight against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The reaction of the Clinton administration was: it’s not that the Russians want to be really good partners, they want the Americans to tolerate the new Russian influence in Central Asia. And US ambassadors, on the contrary, were instructed to oppose this Russian influence in every possible way.
Then came 2007 and Putin expressed his concerns about US and NATO actions in the famous ‘Munich speech,’ but relations were still more-or-less normal. Russia had in principle been very restrained for a very long time, in Georgia, Ukraine and elsewhere, although it was less and less willing to accept American hegemony and imposition of rules. But when it came to decision makers in Moscow, it seemed to me that no one was looking to bring the matter to a head.
You are right, this is a long and complicated conversation about how we came to live like this. But I am convinced that since the late 1990s and early 2000s, the idea of preventing Russia from being an independent force on the international stage has become more and more dominant in Washington. And I did not see during that period, and I do not see now, any signs of interest among decision-makers in the United States in a serious discussion of the problems that have accumulated.
After Putin’s 2007 speech in Munich, a number of people who were there told me that he had done it for nothing. One very distinguished former American diplomat, who was generally regarded as pro-Russian, said to me: ‘This was not helpful’. And I asked him: helpful to whom? And he replied that nobody would agree to meet the demands and concerns that Putin was expressing. So, you see, even such a sensible and experienced person, who, among other things, was a consultant to major Russian companies, it didn’t even occur to him that what Putin was saying should be taken seriously.
So, it seems to me that the main responsibility for what has happened lies with the US and, above all, with the American deep state, the deep state most of whose representatives, as I found out over many years of working in Washington, are hostile to Russia. They were not interested in any rapprochement with Russia, no matter what was said publicly. I discussed this topic on air with Sachs, and he has the same feeling that this deep state ensures the continuity of this kind of Washington policy, regardless of the preferences of this or that president in the White House.
Of course, presidents, secretaries of state and national security advisers are all people with their own views and approaches to Russia. But if we talk in general, in my estimation, starting with Bill Clinton, it somehow turned out that it was people who were either critical or hostile towards Russia who in practice played a decisive role in formulating Washington’s policy towards Moscow.
- You just reminded me of the memoirs of the former US Ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, which we wrote about recently. In it, he recalls how he promised the Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov that he would convey an invitation to Trump to visit Moscow to celebrate WW2 Victory Day, while he himself, according to his own recollections, was determined to do everything possible to prevent such a visit from taking place.
- I did not meet John Sullivan but, in the past, when I flew from Washington to Moscow, I was always invited to meetings with the heads of the US diplomatic missions. They were good and different, the most impressive was Bill Burns.
- The current head of the CIA.
- Yes. I always thought they were basically decent people. But every time it turned out that no matter how reasonable they were, in the end they followed the ‘party line,’ which is very hostile to the recognition of Russia as an independent great power.