A behind-the-scenes veteran of two of America’s most well-known cable news outlets has been taken into custody by authorities in London, England, for the last eight years of work on his resume, work conducted for Russian media linked to aggression in Ukraine, according to U.S. prosecutors.
71-year-odld Jak Hanick’s arrest was a historic one, described by U.S. Attorney Damian Williams as the first criminal indictment stemming from a violation of U.S. sanctions put in place after Russia’s annexation of Crimea eight years ago.
According to Williams, Hanick spent years in the employ of Konstantin Malofeyev, a Russian oligarch and the founder of Russian Orthodox news station Tsargrad TV. U.S. sanctions dictated that U.S. citizens were not allowed to work for or do business with Malofeyev.
Hanick “knowingly chose to help Malofeyev spread his destabilizing messages by establishing, or attempting to establish, TV networks in Russia, Bulgaria, and Greece, in violation of those sanctions,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen in a news release, adding, “The Justice Department will do everything it can to stamp out Russian aggression and interference.”
Hanick’s job history on Linkedin shows a year spent as a director at CNBC in 1995, then a long stint in the same role at Fox News from mid-1996 to mid-2011. The profile describes Hanick as being part of the Fox News “start-up team.”
America’s official sanctions on Malofeyev were issued by the U.S.
Treasury Department in December 2014 after he was identified as a major financial source for the promotion of separatism of Russians in Crimea. The indictment alleges Hanick continued to work for Tsargrad TV for at least another three years after the sanctions were put in place.
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