The raid began on August 13 however at that time Dimitri Simes was out of the country and said that he had not been notified about the warrant, reported by The Guardian.
He said “I’m puzzled and concerned. I have not seen a warrant. I was not contacted by any law enforcement or anyone else whatsoever.”
Simes’ name was included over 100 times in the 2019 Mueller report on Russian interference in the US 2016 election. According to the report, the investigation “identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign” and established that the Trump Campaign “showed interest in WikiLeaks’s releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton.”
In a conversation with Russian state-owned Sputnik News, Simes described the raid as “clearly an attempt to intimidate, not only somebody from Russia, but just anyone who goes against official policies and particularly against the deep state.” He further speculated, “My suspicion is that instead of trying to get me to come to the United States and to interrogate me or even to arrest me, their real purpose is to make sure that I would not come back.”
Dimitri Simes Jr., his son, noted to Sputnik News that his father had not been in the US since October 2022. He tweeted, “The Biden regime is terrified of being called out over Ukraine and Israel,” and later added, “Elements of Biden regime are trying to disrupt any possibility for de-escalation with Russia and plunge America into World War III.”
Simes emigrated to the US from Moscow in 1973. He provided informal foreign policy advice to President Richard Nixon and spent almost 30 years leading the Center for the National Interest. His meeting with Jared Kushner, Son-in -Law of Donald Trump at a luncheon in honor of Henry Kissinger in March 2016 led to his involvement with the Trump campaign. Simes provided informal counsel on foreign policy, including advice on a speech Trump delivered that promoted closer ties with Russia.
The Mueller report featured Simes and the Center for the National Interest prominently but eventually cleared them of any wrongdoing. Around the same time, Simes was also investigated by the Senate finance committee for his contacts with Russian Central Bank official Alexander Torshin and Maria Butina, who was later sentenced to 18 months in prison for attempting to infiltrate US conservative groups before the 2016 election.
In recent years, Simes has maintained a public profile in Russia. He moderated a discussion with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum last year, and in June, he participated in a closed-door meeting with Putin, as reported by the Russian news agency Tass.