Accused Russian Spy Had Closer Ties to Think Tank Than Previously Thought

Here is more from Daily Beast:

When federal prosecutors charged Maria Butina with infiltrating the conservative movement on behalf of the Kremlin, questions began to swirl around a Washington think tank that had published her pro-GOP writing—and hosted then-candidate Donald Trump’s Russia-friendly first foreign-policy speech.

The executive director of the organization, the Center for the National Interest, insisted that its interaction with Butina was “very limited.”

But previously unreported emails and direct messages between Butina and officials at the Center show her relationship with the think tank’s president—former Richard Nixon adviser Dimitri Simes—was closer than previously understood. The two didn’t just make plans to have dinner together. According to emails and Twitter DMs reviewed by The Daily Beast, Simes looked to use his connections with Butina and her associate, Russian Central Bank official Alexandr Torshin, to advance the business interests of one of the Center’s most generous donors.

These communications indicate that Simes tried to connect a top benefactor of his organization and one of the most powerful officials in the Kremlin.

The meeting never happened. But if anyone could have pulled it off, it might have been the Moscow-born Simes. A fixture of the D.C. foreign policy establishment, he worked at some of Washington’s most prestigious institutions—including the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies—before being selected by Richard Nixon to lead the Center for National Interest. Simes is widely viewed as one of the Washingtonians with the closest Kremlin connections. And his think tank argues for foreign policy realism, including warmer relations between Washington and Moscow. 

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post about Butina's ties to the Center for the National Interest.

Update: Daily Beat is now reporting that Dimitri Simes had early access to Trump's pro-Russia speech.

US Think Tank Facilitated Russian Spy Meeting with Gov't Officials?

Here is more from Reuters:

Maria Butina, accused in the United States of spying for Russia, had wider high-level contacts in Washington than previously known, taking part in 2015 meetings between a visiting Russian official and two senior U.S. officials.

The meetings, disclosed by several people familiar with the sessions and a report prepared by a Washington think tank that arranged them, involved Stanley Fischer, then Federal Reserve vice chairman, and Nathan Sheets, then Treasury undersecretary for international affairs.

Butina traveled to the United States in April 2015 with Alexander Torshin, then the Russian Central Bank deputy governor, and they took part in separate meetings with Fischer and Sheets to discuss U.S.-Russian economic relations during Democratic former President Barack Obama’s administration. 

The meetings with Fischer and Sheets were arranged by the Center for the National Interest, a Washington foreign policy think tank that is supportive of efforts to improve U.S.-Russia relations. Paul Saunders, its executive director, in December 2016 urged then President-elect Donald Trump to ease tensions with Russia. In articles in its magazine, The National Interest, members of the think tank have also warned of the costs to the United States of confronting Russia or getting involved in Eurasian conflicts.

The meetings were documented in a Center for the National Interest report seen by Reuters that outlined its Russia-related activities from 2013 to 2015. The report described the meetings as helping bring together “leading figures from the financial institutions of the United States and Russia.”

Saunders, the think tank’s executive director, said Torshin spoke at an April 2015 event about the Russian banking system and Butina attended as Torshin’s interpreter. Saunders said people at the organization cannot recall details of Torshin’s presentation. 

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch piece about the Center for the National Interest (CNI) hosting Donald Trump.

Here is a ProPublica piece entitled "Why Russian Spies Really Like American Universities."

Update from Politico on July 26: Spotted at the Center for the National Interest’s annual Distinguished Service Award Dinner honoring Secretary of Defense James Mattis last night at the Four Seasons Hotel: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), Ret. Gen. Charles Boyd, Dimitri Simes, Paul Saunders, Dov Zakheim, Drew Gruff, Grover Norquist, Samah Norquist David Norquist, Suhail Khan, Jacob Heilbrunn and Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.

Center for American Progress Action Fund's (CAPAF) ThinkProgress first reported on Butina nearly two years ago.

Nixon's Think Tank to Host Donald Trump

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump continues to embrace think tank land.  Having scooped up a number of advisors from think tanks, he is now being hosted by a Washington, DC think to give a major foreign policy speech.

Here is more from The New York Times:

Donald J. Trump will deliver his first foreign policy address at the National Press Club in Washington next week, his campaign said, at an event hosted by an organization founded by President Richard M. Nixon.

The speech, planned for lunchtime on Wednesday, will be Mr. Trump’s first major policy address since a national security speech last fall.

The speech will be hosted by the Center for the National Interest, formerly known as the Nixon Center, and the magazine it publishes, The National Interest, according to a news release provided by the Trump campaign.

The group, which left the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in 2011 to become a nonprofit, says on its website that it was founded by the former president to be a voice to promote “strategic realism in U.S. foreign policy.” Its associates include Henry A. Kissinger, the secretary of state under Nixon, as well as Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama and a senior adviser to Mr. Trump. Roger Stone, a sometime adviser of Mr. Trump, is a former Nixon aide.

Here is what Politico is reporting about the speech.  Here is what Brookings Institution scholar Thomas Wright is saying about the speech.

Dimitri Simes, the President of the Center for the National Interest (CNI) and a former aide to Richard Nixon, was reportedly on Sen. Rand Paul's (R-KY) foreign policy advisory team in 2014.

This Free Beacon article says that for years, Simes and CNI "have provided a sympathetic platform for the Russian government in the heart of the DC policy establishment."

Among those on the Board of Directors of CNI include Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), Leslie Gelb (President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations), former Gov. Jon Huntsman, Amb. Zalmay Khalilzad, Admiral Michael Mullen, Grover Norquist, Brent Scowcroft, Jeffrey Bewkes (Chairman/CEO of Time Warner), billionaire Peter Peterson, and Julie Nixon Eisenhower (daughter of Richard Nixon).

Henry Kissinger is the Honorary Chairman of CNI, and Maurice Greenberg is Chairman Emeritus of CNI.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post on think tanks possibly controlling a Trump presidency.  Here is a previous post on how Donald Trump sees think tanks.  And here is a previous post about how Donald Trump has an affinity toward Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) president Richard Haass.  Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post showing that Trump has been consulting with think tanks for quite awhile now.

Update: Foreign Policy has a new parody piece entitled "Breaking: Richard Nixon Does Not Endorse Donald Trump."  The author, who pretends to be Richard Nixon, says, among other things, that he objected to the Nixon Center name change to Center for the National Interest, and said that the new name is "the sort of pointy-headed doublespeak that passes as nuance in the campus tearooms."

Also, John Bolton of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) said that Trump's foreign policy analysis was right on target.  Matt Mayer of AEI said that the devil is in the details in Trump's foreign policy speech.  Michael Auslin of AEI said that Trump "is still at sea" in Asia.  And here is Derek Scissors of AEI on Trump's speech and trade.