RT reports on a lengthy interview that Kommersant correspondent Elena Chernenko published with Dimitri Simes on Sept. 9, in which the veteran Russian journalist discussed the lengthy FBI raid of his Virginia residence on Aug. 15, accompanied by charges of sanctions violations carrying a 60-year sentence. The 76-year-old Simes was born in Moscow, but left the Soviet Union at the age of 26. “In the U.S.,” RT reported, “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…. He left National Interest in 2022 and returned to Moscow, where he hosts the show ‘The Great Game’ on Russia’s Channel One.”
Simes expressed outrage at the FBI raid and the charges. “As for the accusation that I allegedly violated the U.S. 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….
“I think the White House decided to go ahead and stir up the issue of Russian interference in the American election again…. 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….
