JRL NEWSWATCH: “In connection with Maria Butina, FBI agents reportedly questioned people close to Dmitri Simes, the president of the Center for the National Interest” – Meduza

“While investigating Maria Butina for illegal foreign agent activities, the [FBI] reportedly explored her ties to Russian-American political expert and Center for the National Interest president Dimitri Simes, who has co-hosted a talk show on Russian state television since 2018. Two sources who know Simes told the online project Otkrytye Media (Open Media) that FBI agents previously questioned them about Simes’s connections to Butina. After Butina’s arrest in July 2018, federal agents reportedly visited the Center for the National Interest in Washington, D.C. The think tank’s lawyer, David Rivkin, told Otkrytye Media that the FBI’s interest is part of a campaign ‘designed to destroy CNI’s reputation,’ saying that the federal agents did not meet with Simes. This isn’t the first time Dmitri Simes’s name has come up in the Butina case ….”

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