Rand Paul wants Trump to lift US travel sanctions on some Russian lawmakers

[dalton99a]

1. Rand Paul works for Vladimir Putin.

https://freebeacon.com/politics/rand-pauls-russian-connection/

Rand Paul’s Russian Connection
Paul names controversial Kremlin expert foreign policy adviser
BY: Alana Goodman Follow @alanagoodman
August 20, 2014 9:59 am


Dimitri K. Simes (born Dmitry Kostantinovich Simis, Russian: Дмитрий Константинович Симис )

Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) has named as one of his key foreign policy advisers a controversial Russia policy expert with deep ties to the Kremlin.

Dimitri Simes, the president of the Center for the National Interest, and Ambassador Richard Burt, a member of the Center’s board of directors, are recent additions to Paul’s foreign policy advisory team, the senator told National Journal earlier this year.

For years, Simes and the center have provided a sympathetic platform for the Russian government in the heart of the D.C. policy establishment. Its ties to Moscow extend throughout the organization.

The advisory council of the National Interest, the center’s chief publication, includes Alexey Pushkov, a Russian Duma official recently targeted for sanctions by the U.S. government in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Pushkov has come under fire for claiming that the Bush administration orchestrated the September 11 attacks and for blaming the 2013 Navy Yard shooting on "American exceptionalism."

A former aide to Richard Nixon, Simes is publisher of the National Interest, a hotbed of "realist" foreign policy thinking that boasts Henry Kissinger as its honorary chairman.

Simes’ views and connections are widely known in Russia policy circles. Last September, days after Vladimir Putin published a column in the New York Times denouncing American exceptionalism, Simes joined the Russian president on stage at the Valdai International Discussion Club forum in Russia for a televised panel discussion.

Flanked by three other panelists—Germany’s former defense minister and France and Italy’s former prime ministers—Simes seemed out of place at the high-ranking, Kremlin-sponsored forum.

"No one directly addresses Putin at Dimitri Simes’ level," noted one Washington-based Russia policy expert. "It just doesn’t happen."

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