‘Biden is out to get me’: A Russian-American TV host facing 60 years in an American jail speaks out
RT | September 9, 2024
The US Department of Justice has accused the 76-year-old – a former adviser to the late US President Richard Nixon who now hosts a talk show on Russian TV – with 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.
Now It Is the White House that Is Smearing Tucker Carlson
By Paul Craig Roberts | Institute for Political Economy | September 8, 2024
NY Times, CNN, and WH Press Secretary Bates are Smearing Tucker Carlson as a Hitler apologist in an Attempt to Shut Him Down.
Tucker interviewed Darryl Cooper whose view of World War II appears to be based in the 50-year research of historian David Irving. It is not the official view established by court historians. Consequently, the “White House condemns Tucker Carlson’s ‘Nazi propaganda’ interview as ‘disgusting and sadistic insult.’”
In his well researched books, World War II historian David Irving reported that whereas he found evidence that Jews were murdered in the hundreds of thousands, he cannot find evidence of an organized Holocaust. He said that from all the documents he could find and force out of sealed archives, the crimes against the Jews resulted from decisions unrelated to an organized plan of extermination. No historian has ever found a Nazi plan for Jewish extermination. Such a massive undertaking as a Holocaust could not be undertaken without a bureaucratic organization and an organized plan, but there is no evidence of any such organization and plan. Hitler repeatedly said that the Jewish question would be settled after the war. He spoke of relocating Jews to Madagascar. Later with the initial success of his invasion of the Soviet Union, Hitler spoke of relocating Jews to the eastern part of the Soviet Union that he would leave to Stalin.
Reporting Irving’s findings does not make Irving or me or anyone an anti-semite or holocaust denier. Irving simply reported what he found, and I merely reported what Irving found. It sounds like that is what Darryl Cooper is doing on Carlson’s program. Ron Unz, himself a Jew, has raised his own questions about Holocaust evidence in the Unz Review. Western civilization works by raising questions, not by imposing dogmas.
If all research results are denounced by those who don’t like the findings, how is truth established? It seems to me that Jews hurt their case by shouting down with name-calling and threats against reputations and careers every time they hear something that they don’t like or that doesn’t fit the narrative. If the Holocaust story is accurate, it will stand on its own feet without name-calling and enemies lists.
The indoctrinated notion of the unparalleled evil of Nazi Germany rests more on war propaganda than in fact. Irving’s books, Churchill’s War and Hitler’s War are the most researched and most honest books about the war. On the basis of an honest rendition of the record, Churchill comes across as a worse war criminal than Hitler. Read the two books, and make your own decision. Why rely on ancient war propaganda?
The widespread view that Hitler started World War II and intended to conquer the world is total ignorance kept alive by court historians. World War II was started by the British and French when they declared war on Germany. What Hitler was doing in Poland was the same as Putin is doing in Ukraine. What Putin is doing is protecting Russian people, who found themselves included in a foreign country by the political decisions made by others than themselves, from persecution and slaughter by Ukrainians.
In Poland Hitler was protecting German people, who were stuck into Poland by decisions made by others than themselves, from persecution, dispossession, and death by the Polish. Hitler’s protection of German people was no business of the British any more than Putin’s protection of Russians is any business of the US.
No one has answered David Irving’s findings. They just call him names. That tells you where the stronger case resides.
I am not a WW II historian and neither is Tucker Carlson, but we both wonder why views are suppressed if they can be factually disproved.
The propagandistic way in which WW II has been presented for 83 years has had major harmful effects on countries, their populations, foreign affairs and world history. Those who bring balance to the story should be celebrated, not demonized.
If you will notice, during the 21st century in every country in the Western world what can be discussed or even mentioned has been massively narrowed. We have reached the point where almost anything said or written is hate speech, racist, misogynist, a threat to democracy, offensive, insensitive, anti-semitic, or Russian propaganda. The great writings in the English language, such as Shakespeare, cannot be read in schools because they violate strictures that have been imposed on language. Bigots now dictate our use of language. Official narratives dictate our understanding of history and current events. A world is being created for us in which facts and truth are objectionable.
Lockheed Martin Develops System to Identify and Counter Online “Disinformation,” Prototyped by DARPA
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | September 6, 2024
Various military units around the world (notably in the UK during the pandemic) have been getting involved in what are ultimately, due to the goal (censorship) and participants (military) destined to become controversial, if not unlawful efforts.
But there doesn’t seem to be a lot of desire to learn from others’ mistakes. The temptation to bring the defense system into the political “war on disinformation” arena seems to be too strong to resist.
Right now in the US, Lockheed Martin is close to completing a prototype that will analyze media to “detect and defeat disinformation.”
And by media, those commissioning the tool – called the Semantic Forensics (SemaFor) program – mean everything: news, the internet, and even entertainment media. Text, audio, images, and video that are part of what’s considered “large-scale automated disinformation attacks” are supposed to be detected and labeled as false by the tool.
The development process is almost over, and the prototype is used by the US Defense Department’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
The total value of the program, awarded by the Air Force Research Laboratory Information Directorate (acting for DARPA) to Lockheed Martin comes to $37.2 million, Military and Aerospace Electronics reported.
Reports note that while past statistical detection methods have been “successful” they are now seen as “insufficient” for media disinformation detection. This is why looking into “semantic inconsistency” is preferred.
There is a rather curious example given of how “mismatched earrings” can be a giveaway that a face is not real but generated via a GAN – a generative adversarial network.
(GANs are a machine learning method.)
And SemaFor’s purpose is to analyze media with semantic tech algorithms, to hand down the verdict of whether the content is authentic or false.
There’s more: proving such activities come from a specific actor has been near impossible so far, but there’s a “mental workaround” that those behind the project seem happy with: infer, rather than identify. So – just like before?
“Attribution algorithms” are what’s needed for this, and there’s more guesswork presented as reliable tech – namely, “characterization algorithms” to decide not only if media is manipulated or generated, but also if the purpose is malicious.
Now, the only thing left to find out – how the algorithms are written.
Sanctions Against Russian Media Aimed at Discrediting Potential Trump Victory – Expert
Sputnik – 07.09.2024
The recent US sanctions against Russia’s Rossiya Segodnya international media group and the RT broadcaster is an effort by Democrat-leaning federal government to contest a potential win by former President Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election by rehashing anti-Russia narratives, historian and political analyst Paul Gottfried, told Sputnik.
“It is clear why the departments of our federal government, which are now subsidiaries of the Democratic Party, are screaming ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ for the umpteenth time. They are being mobilized to contest the presidential election if they can’t prevent Trump from winning. Unfortunately [for them], the same actors were involved in the same farce throughout the Trump presidency and may be losing credibility,” Gottfried, who is the editor-in-chief of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture and Raffensperger professor of humanities emeritus at Elizabethtown College, said.
On September 4, the US Department of the Treasury announced sanctions against the editor-in-chief of Russia’s Rossiya Segodnya international media group and the RT broadcaster, Margarita Simonyan, and her deputies Anton Anisimov and Elizaveta Brodskaia. Deputy Director of the RT English-Language Information Broadcasting Andrey Kiyashko, RT’s Digital Media Projects Manager Konstantin Kalashnikov and a number of other employees of the broadcaster were also added to the sanctions list.
The US State Department, in a parallel move, tightened the operating conditions for Rossiya Segodnya and its subsidiaries, designating them as “foreign missions.” Under the Foreign Missions Act, they will be required to notify the department of all personnel working in the United States and disclose all real estate they own.
US authorities also announced restrictions on the issuance of visas to individuals they allege are “acting on behalf of Kremlin-supported media organizations.” However, the Department of State refused to disclose the names of those subject to the new visa restrictions. Commenting on the new sanctions, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller claimed the measures did not target any particular individual Russian journalists, but rather the employees of the targeted companies who were involved in “covert activities.”
Meanwhile, US authorities have charged Kalashnikov and another RT employee, Elena Afanasyeva, with money laundering conspiracy and violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
$10 mln is serious money – What’s lacking? Serious evidence of crime
By Joaquin Flores | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 7, 2024
The entrenched authorities are bent on inserting Kamala Harris into office using lawfare, despite her resounding unpopularity and anti-populism. On September 4th, 2024, the United States Department of Justice issued a press release from its Office of Public Affairs, detailing and making public a sealed indictment (it can be read here) against two Russian nationals, who are said to be employees of RT, for ‘funneling’ US $10mln to various high-profile social media content creators. What strikes us immediately is that this is not a crime, even though the word ‘funneling’ is a strongly loaded term in the sense of neuro-linguistic programming, and so the DOJ’s approach to geopolitical lawfare as an extended form of political warfare in the information sphere, has been to find a legal theory that would support ‘finding’ and ‘creating’ charges on the basis of the two accused having conspired to fail to register as foreign agents.
The opening paragraphs of the DOJ press release read:
<<An indictment charging Russian nationals Kostiantyn [for some reason DOJ uses the Ukrainian version of the Russian name Konstantin – SCF] Kalashnikov, 31, also known as Kostya, and Elena Afanasyeva, 27, also known as Lena, with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and conspiracy to commit money laundering was unsealed today in the Southern District of New York. Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva are at large.
“The Justice Department has charged two employees of RT, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, in a $10 million scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts, and our investigation into this matter remains ongoing.”
“Our approach to combating foreign malign influence is actor-driven, exposing the hidden hand of adversaries pulling strings of influence from behind the curtain,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. “As alleged in today’s indictment, Russian state broadcaster RT and its employees, including the charged defendants, co-opted online commentators by funneling them nearly $10 million to pump pro-Russia propaganda and disinformation across social media to U.S. audiences. The Department will not tolerate foreign efforts to illegally manipulate American public opinion by sowing discord and division.”>>
Based on the language of the charges, it would appear that the foreign nationals were physically in the United States for the duration, or at least the initiation, of the project. That they are ‘at large’ and have not been taken into custody would seem to imply that this arrest will happen imminently, or that the two accused are no longer in the US.
It is important to keep in mind that it is not illegal for Russians to spend money in the US, and it is not illegal for Russians or any other foreign nationals to start a business, or engage in protected 1st Amendment activities such as blogging and news or opinion writing or broadcasting.
Assuming that some parts of the described predicate are true, (that a Russian citizen’s money was spent in the US), provided that the individual is not an a US Treasury Department sanctions list, the relevant Executive Order, or legislation, has not obviously been violated. There are some limitations to speech in the US for foreign nationals, and while there is some nuance here, generally 1st Amendment activities are protected unless there is either a reasonable or articulable risk (which standard may depend on the circumstances) to national security that could reasonably lead to a grand jury indictment – think insider whistle-blowing or releasing government/corporate secrets.
‘Funneling’ moneys to individual content creators – YouTuber Tim Pool is believed to be prominent among these – may or may not have influenced the content they were creating – another important part of the nuanced questions that arise. And if the opinions of said content creators (on the subjects they are known for) had not changed after the influx of private party backing, it is more difficult to make the whole claim that the DOJ is now making. Garland, for his part, also adds a proviso – the messages are “hidden”. At face value, this would seem to give the accuseds’ lawyers an additional challenge.
To the contrary, the opposite would be true: making a charge in which no method of falsifiability can be established, is a baseless charge. It is not a ‘hidden crime’, but an activity indistinguishable from lawful behavior.
More to the point, the subjects being discussed, whether influenced by the alleged money or not, were matters already in the public domain, expressing views and sharing information which is already readily available everywhere, and which were commonplace beliefs among an already significant part of the American population. We are not talking state or corporate secrets, calls for violence or other seditious activity, which rise to the level of a national security risk.
The subject of ‘foreign agent registration’ touches on a different, but related matter. Here again, the DOJ appears to be reaching by conflating that (ostensibly) because the two accused were employees of RT, that any or all other conceivable activities they undertook were performed under the auspices of that employer/employee relationship. Granted, that employment may have been the foundation for their visa to be in the US, but this does not mean that all activities done in the US were done on the basis of that relationship. This much is far from obvious and that case would need to be made, as well.
Yet another conundrum in the USA’s case against the accused arises therefore: they cannot easily make the alleged activity a crime unless they connect it to a more obvious and recognized state-backed sponsor (RT). But this further problematizes the prosecution’s case.
Even though the DOJ cites the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), under FARA, it is the organization itself that must register, not each individual employee.
For RT and similar entities, the requirement is that the organization, as a whole, must register as a foreign agent as they are believed to be acting on behalf of a foreign government or entity and is engaged in political activities or disseminating information in the U.S. The registration process involves disclosing details about the organization’s activities, funding sources, and relationships with foreign principals. RT did indeed register as a foreign agent in the United States to be in compliance with FARA in 2017. This registration was prompted by pressure from the U.S. government, which cited concerns over RT’s role as a state-controlled media outlet spreading Russian government messaging. By registering as a foreign agent, RT was required to disclose its funding sources, activities, and affiliations with the Russian government, in compliance with FARA’s requirements for organizations engaged in political activities on behalf of foreign principals.
To make matters worse, the USA’s case faces another logical fallacy: if the accusation is that the two accused conspired to get around foreign agent registration, it would seem to mean that their work was in fact not connected to their employment with RT. If it was through RT, then they did not violate avoidance of registration. If it was not through RT, the clear case of state-backed involvement evaporates.
Individual employees of such organizations, like Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva, are not required to register as foreign agents unless they are specifically engaged in activities that meet the criteria set out by FARA, such as acting as representatives or lobbyists, including the influence of media, for a foreign government or other “foreign principal”. While “foreign principal” can be construed to include private individuals, if those private individuals are without readily identifiable close connections to foreign politics or foreign geostrategic interests (skin in game), the case becomes much weaker. There are other signs that the DOJ has a considerably weak case.
Take particular notice that the charges are ‘conspiracy’ charges, not the commission of the crime. The charges are ‘conspiracy’ to subvert or ‘get around’ FARA, and ‘conspiracy’ to launder money.
While this is a much lower legal standard, because the predicate of having actually committed the crime need not be at the foundation of a conspiracy charge. On the face of it, this would seem to make the DOJ’s case easier to make.
But not so fast: the successful prosecution of a conspiracy charge only really works in two scenarios. In the first case, the accused must be charged with both committing the crime, and the related conspiracy (communications and agreements involving one or more other persons) charge. In this case, establishing the foundation for, and charging the accused with an actual crime itself, is a necessary predicate for a conspiracy charge to be included.
In the second case, the conspiracy charge is meant to prevent the crime itself from being committed. Yet, in the charges against Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva, their alleged activities are past tense.
Here, the DOJ implicitly admits that they had neither prevented the crime, nor was there sufficient evidence of an actual crime having taken place to serve as the predicate. This type of lawfare seems more like a ‘weapon of mass confusion’ in the interest of one candidate (Harris) and aimed at undermining real and actual domestic US political processes, working against the interests of the other of the candidate, (Trump), in the upcoming November presidential election.
We can therefore see immediately that the DOJ is playing fast and loose with these legal distinctions, and is a sign that at the very least an individual judge was either incompetent or influenced against proper judicial oversight, re the prosecutor’s advisement of the grand jury on how to proceed and what constitutes elements of the crime, leading to these flawed sealed indictments.
Indeed, the recent and highly visible DOJ escalation of the investigation into American affiliations with Russian state television networks has ignited considerable concerns over the weaponization (and definition) of American institutions.
Officially aimed at countering Kremlin influence operations in advance of the forthcoming presidential election, the heinously broad scope and the underlying investigations, including the potential shut-down of content producers like Tim Pool, has sparked concerns about the politicization of the DOJ and other governmental entities. The aggressive actions have led to allegations that these efforts are more politically motivated than grounded in genuine national security concerns.
The DOJ’s actions, part of a broader strategy ostensibly to neutralize Russia’s state-run media operations, have featured dramatic high-profile interventions, including searches and involuntary detentions executed by FBI agents, at citizens’ homes and ports of entry. These other actions, while not yet leading to the charges we see in the September 4th charges, signal an expansive scope that will no doubt involve additional individuals and potential criminal repercussions. Such measures have led to significant skepticism and condemnation, even from former government officials, like former US State Department official Mike Benz, meaning that the investigations and detentions are more about a form of full-spectrum domination than safeguarding genuine national interests. For what is in the national interest beyond what is the interest of the country’s population?
Certainly, the notion that national interest is synonymous with the agendas of a small, ideologically driven clique, who happen to hold considerable sway within a specific historical timeline, seems rather contrary to a broad, long-term, and societal view, or rather definition, of the national interest. These individuals – Trans-Atlantic neoliberal neoconservatives, occupying cabinet and permanent administration positions, and in the military – primarily serve the narrow interests of a select group of Americans (themselves) who are more invested in perpetuating a Cold War-style Russophobia and Sinophobia than a genuine advancement of the broader national interest. Their approach is driven by the inertia of think tanks, financial interests, and the ever-churning machinery of the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC), which ties back into an ecosystem that thrives on maintaining the status quo.
The DOJ’s actions are a brazen example of politicized lawfare masquerading as national security. By wielding the Foreign Agents Registration Act as a blunt instrument against “RT employees”, they are not just reaching but overreaching—attempting to equate the legitimate financial support of independent content creators with nefarious foreign influence.
The targets are not simply the accused, nor are they simply a few content creators that have been named in related journalism, like Mr. Pool. These charges are meant to having a chilling and silencing effect on all Americans, on all citizens engaged in social media at every level. These grand jury charges are undemocratic and deplorable to their core.
The flimsy indictment rests on the nebulous charges of conspiracy rather than actual criminal acts, exposing the DOJ’s desperation to manufacture threats where none exist. This reckless use of federal power to stifle dissenting voices and disrupt political narratives serves not the American people, but a narrow band of entrenched interests hell-bent on perpetuating outdated Cold War paranoias.
It is an audacious assault on free speech and a stark reminder of the lengths to which those in power will go to preserve their status quo, even if it means trampling on the foundational principles of justice and democracy. This is not a defense of national interest but an egregious abuse of authority that threatens the very fabric of the republic. If this is how they intend to install Kamala Harris, they will prove that they are hypocritically the source of the very undermining of confidence in American institutions which they accuse others of. So be it.
Ukraine’s top spy declares Telegram a ‘threat to national security’
Chief of the Military Intelligence of Ukraine Kirill Budanov. © Maxym Marusenko/Getty Images
RT | September 7, 2024
Telegram poses a real threat to Ukraine’s national security, the chief of that country’s Main Directorate of Military Intelligence, Kirill Budanov, has stated. The official acknowledged that the encrypted instant-messaging platform has become the prime source of information in the country, “outperforming everything else.”
Telegram was created by Russian tech entrepreneurs Pavel and Nikolay Durov back in 2013. One of its unique features is that it allows users to create public broadcast channels and discussion groups.
In an interview with Charter Radio station on Saturday, Budanov said that he does not advocate “simply shutting down” the messaging app. According to the intelligence chief, while quite difficult to implement, such a ban is doable, though.
“I call for all Telegram channels” to be obliged to establish a physical presence in Ukraine, Budanov declared.
“If you want to, so to speak, disseminate some news, please register, so that everyone understands that this channel is registered by Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich, a Russian citizen, who resides in Moscow,” the Ukrainian official explained.
He argued that this way Telegram channel administrators would bear responsibility for the content posted on it.
According to Budanov, some channels publish “not really printable materials,” and not only with respect to the ongoing military conflict with Russia.
He made similar remarks in late March, noting at the same time that Telegram is a useful tool for Ukrainian secret services in spreading their narratives in Russian-controlled territories.
Around the same time, a group of Ukrainian lawmakers proposed a bill to “regulate” Telegram. It included, among other things, a requirement for any messaging apps operating in Ukraine to set up a registered office in the country – unless they are headquartered in the EU – and to disclose their ownership structure and funding to the government.
The founder and CEO of Telegram, Pavel Durov, was detained after landing at Paris-Le Bourget Airport on August 24 and released on bail several days later. The Russian-born entrepreneur, who is also a citizen of France, the UAE, and the Caribbean nation of St. Kitts and Nevis, was charged on 12 counts, including complicity in distributing child porn, drug dealing and money laundering. The charges cite Telegram’s lax moderation rules that presumably allow for the widespread use of the platform by criminals.
Telegram is no stranger to legal problems, with authorities in numerous countries, including Russia, having taken issue with its policies. It has been banned in several jurisdictions over its refusal to cooperate with local governments.
Durov Bombshell: Archaic Crypto Law Charges Reveal French Intel’s Access to Private Communications
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 06.09.2024
The Durov saga in France and the continued efforts by countries around the world to crack down on his popular cloud-based, end-to-end encrypted private messenger and social media software has divulged a string of embarrassing details about the sorry state of internet privacy and freedom of information.
Two of the six charges facing Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in France are grounded an obscure, never-used twenty-year-old law obliging companies providing cryptography tools to inform the French Cybersecurity Agency (French acronym ANSSI) and grant it access to the software’s source code and “a description of [its] technical characteristics.”
The 2004 law – uniquely blunt in its demand that companies divulge info about the tech tools used for private communications, is being used against Durov by accusing him of providing encrypted communications services “without certified declaration.”
The legal requirement also means, if it is applied evenly across the board, that the array of instant messengers available to French users, from WhatsApp and Signal to iMessage and the French-made Olvid ‘secure’ messenger used by the French government, do comply with ANSSI regulations, meaning French intelligence can potentially spy on any or all French users at any time.
Adding credence to this idea is the fact that Pavel Durov is reportedly the first-ever tech mogul to be charged under the 2004 law, and the fact that many big-name tech companies have been silent on the Durov case, with the exception of Proton CEO Andy Yen, who characterized the charges against the Russian-born tech mogul as “economic suicide” that’s “rapidly and permanently changing the perception of founders and investors” toward France.
“If sustained, I don’t see how tech founders could possibly travel to France, much less hire in France,” Yen wrote last week.
The law is also reminiscent of the case against WikiLeaks cofounder Julian Assange, who was threatened with decades of jail time by the US under the obscure Espionage Act of 1917, even though that he was not an American citizen, and a publisher, not a spy. Former president Donald Trump was charged under the same act in his classified documents case, which got thrown out by a judge in July.
American universities rolling out BANS on anti-Israel protests; any criticism of Zionism to be considered “hate speech”
By Ethan Huff | News Target | September 4, 2024
Following the lead of New York University (NYU), American colleges and universities are imposing new rules to ban all criticism of Israel as “hate speech” and “antisemitism.”
At least 17 schools, including NYU, have already altered their policies to punish students and faculty for disagreeing with Israel’s war on Gaza. Some are prohibiting all Israel-related protests while others are going so far as to ban entire student organizations on campus.
In more extreme cases, schools are prohibiting students and faculty from protesting even online while others are expanding their conduct codes to basically keep quiet about Zionism or else face a school tribunal, of sorts, for punishment.
Indiana University, for instance, changed its “expressive activity” policy to ban all protests within 25 feet of university buildings and demonstrations that block “any building, facility, driveway, parking lot or parking ramp.”
The University of South Florida is banning all protests after 5 p.m., as well as during the entire final two weeks of every semester. If USF students want to set up a tent or canopy on campus, they will now be required to first get approval – and under no circumstances can anything be left out overnight without prior authorization.
(Related: Some teachers and preachers of prophecy, including Amir Tsarfati, want to justify genocide by claiming that the mass killing of Palestinians is God’s will for Israel.)
Zuckerberg, a true Zionist lapdog
At Vanderbilt University, all demonstrations that “require individuals to sleep or gather overnight” are now strictly prohibited. All on-campus displays from now on must also be during daylight hours only, and for no longer than three consecutive days at a time.
The University of California (UC) system says that encampments are no longer allowed on any of its 10 campuses. Protesters are also strictly prohibited from wearing masks or otherwise disguising their identity now that the people doing it are protesting Israel rather than destroying property in solidary with George Floyd.
The California State University (CSU) has implemented the same new rules as the UC system at its 23 statewide campuses.
At Rutgers University in New Jersey, the entire chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is prohibited from the campus until July 2025, which is the same thing George Washington University did except that GWU also kicked out Jewish Voices for Peace, an anti-Zionist Jewish organization.
At Columbia University, SJP is permanently banned from having an Instagram account. The school is so involved in making this new rule stick that it convinced Meta to send a notice to its SJP chapter informing members that their group’s account “doesn’t follow our Community Guidelines.”
The list goes on and on as the Zionist contingent in America makes its moves trying to silence all of their critics. They are really playing their hand now and showing just how many schools, government agencies, corporations and other institutions are under their thumb, hence the systematic abolition of free speech we are witnessing.
It turns out that one of the first entities to start doing all this was Facebook (Meta), which has been working on trying to silence anti-Zionist speech on its platform since at least 2020 when Mark Zuckerberg issued new speech codes banning all Holocaust denial and other content that depicts “Jewish people running the world or controlling major institutions such as media networks, the economy or the government.”
“The idea of banning content that promotes stereotypes of Jewish global control came up a year ago, in a meeting with several Jewish groups convened by Facebook, and was pushed primarily by the World Jewish Congress,” The Jewish Daily Forward reported at the time.
Unions condemn British police for arresting independent journalist
RT | September 5, 2024
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and UK’s National Union of Journalists (NUJ) have condemned the recent arrest in the UK of independent reporter Richard Medhurst. In a joint letter addressed to New Scotland Yard anti-terrorism head Matt Jukes and dated Tuesday, the unions said they were “shocked” and “concerned” over what they consider “efforts to stifle press freedom.”
A British citizen of Syrian descent, Medhurst was arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport on August 15. According to his own account provided to several media outlets, he was pulled off a plane and taken to a police station, where he was held for over 24 hours. His phone and work equipment were seized, while Medhurst himself was subjected to a search and a questioning.
He was told he was arrested under Section 12 of the UK’s Terrorism Act 2000 on charges of “expressing an opinion or a belief that is supportive of a proscribed organization.” He was eventually let go, but said he does not yet know whether he will be charged with any offense.
Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, and Anthony Bellanger, IFJ general secretary, said Medhurst’s arrest “will likely have a chilling effect on journalists in the UK and worldwide,” as they would now fear arrest by UK authorities “simply for carrying out their work.”
“Both the NUJ and IFJ are shocked at the increased use of terrorism legislation by the British police in this manner. Journalism is not a crime,” they stated, arguing that the “powers contained in anti-terror legislation must be deployed proportionately – not wielded against journalists in ways that inevitably stifle press freedom.” They requested a meeting with Jukes, urging UK authorities to provide “clarity” on Medhurst’s case.
The Terrorism Act 2000 gives police wide powers to prosecute and punish offenses linked with terrorism. Its Section 12 criminalizes anyone who “invites support” for an organization designated as terrorist or “expresses an opinion or belief that is supportive” of it. A person found guilty of an offense under this section could face imprisonment for up to 14 years and a hefty fine.
Medhurst told the Anadolu news agency that he was never given a clear reason for his detention, but said it was likely linked to his reporting on the war in Gaza. The journalist is a vocal supporter of Palestine and its militant group Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by the UK government.
He also warned that his arrest could set a dangerous precedent, noting that London is increasingly using the Terrorism Act “not against terrorists, but against political dissidents.”
Medhurst covers international affairs on his YouTube channel and hosts a program on Iran’s Press TV, while also publishing opinion pieces in other outlets. He previously contributed several articles to RT.
Scott Ritter Says Ending Cooperation With RT, Sputnik Due to US Sanctions
Sputnik – 05.09.2024
The US Department of the Treasury issued a statement on Wednesday to announce sanctions against the Rossiya Segodnya media group, RIA Novosti, RT, Sputnik and Ruptly. The sanctions affected Rossiya Segodnya and RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan and a number of other senior executives.
“The actions by the Department of the Treasury in levying new sanctions against RT, Sputnik, and other Russian media organizations has made it impossible for me to continue my work as an outside contributor for RT and Sputnik, as well as participating in interviews and other collaborations with other Russian media,” Ritter said on X.
He said his work with Russian media organizations was legitimate journalism.
“I reject the notion that the work I have done over the past years with the newly sanctioned Russian media organizations has been anything other than legitimate journalism, the content of which has been factually correct and analytically sound, and always of my own creation,” Ritter said.
However, he said, he is committed to obeying US laws.
“Nonetheless, I am fully committed to obeying US law, and as such will be terminating all contractual relationships with both RT and Sputnik effective immediately, as well as suspending my participation in any and all media interaction with sanctioned individuals and organizations until which time it is deemed lawful to do so by US authorities,” Ritter said.
He said he will continue to exercise his free speech rights.
“I am deeply grateful for the professionalism of all of my Russian colleagues over the past several years, and am proud to have made their acquaintance. I regret the actions of my government in silencing legitimate journalistic outlets, and look forward to the day when freedom of speech and a free press is not constrained by a dubious ‘Russian exception’ that is violative of Constitutional norms and values,” Ritter said.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, commenting on the US sanctions imposed against the Rossiya Segodnya media group, told Sputnik that attacks on Russian media are the result of operations by Western security services to “sterilize” the information space.
US becoming ‘neoliberal dictatorship’ – Moscow
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova © Aleksandr Kryazhev / RIA Novosti
RT | September 5, 2024
Repeated sanctions to limit the freedom of Russian media in the US point to the erosion of democratic values in Washington, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.
The spokeswoman made the comments to RIA Novosti on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on Wednesday, just hours after the US rolled out a new round of sanctions.
Washington has imposed severe restrictions on Russian media in the past, Zakharova noted. The imposition of these new sanctions “testifies to the irreversible degradation of the democratic state in the United States and its transformation into a totalitarian neoliberal dictatorship,” she said, adding that news outlets have become a “bargaining chip in partisan disputes, and the public is deliberately misled by insinuations about mythical interference in ‘democratic processes.’”
The attacks on Russian media are “the result of carefully thought-out operations” planned by intelligence services and coordinated with mainstream media outlets, Zakharova said. The goal, she claimed, is to “to sterilize the national and – in the future – global information space from any forms of dissenting opinion.” This new “witch hunt” is aimed at keeping “the populace in a state of permanent stress,” as well as building up the image of “an external foe” – in this case, Russia, she went on to say.
Despite this, there is a demand for media coverage by RT and other Russian news resources, Zakharova added.
On Wednesday, the Justice, State, and Treasury Departments announced a joint effort to target with sanctions and criminal charges Russian media – including RT – and individuals which the administration of US President Joe Biden claim are Russian “government-sponsored attempts to manipulate US public opinion” ahead of the presidential election this November. The new designations “complement law enforcement actions” such as visa restrictions, as well as a ‘Rewards for Justice’ offer of up to $10 million for “information pertaining to foreign interference in a US election.” They claim that RT used a front company to disguise its own involvement or the involvement of the Russian government in content meant to influence US audiences.
These actions by the US “directly contravene their obligations to ensure free access to information and media pluralism” and will not go unanswered, the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said.
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From the Archives
Is Israel to blame for the Iraq War?
American Goy | March 10, 2008
I am so tired of this old canard that “Israel had nothing to do with USA’s war with Iraq – in fact, it officially advised America against it”.
Bullshit. … continue
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