Indictment: Russians Funneled Money to Right-Wing Influencers

Tenet Media, a content creation company linked to right-wing influencers including Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, and Dave Rubin, has been identified by multiple outlets as the "Company 1" named in a federal indictment against two Russian nationals. Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva are accused of funneling almost $10 million to the Tennessee-based company to boost pro-Russia narratives as part of a propaganda campaign, reports CBS News. CNN reports that Tenet Media describes itself as a "network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues"—identical to language the indictment uses to describe Company 1.

• "Hidden messaging." Attorney General Merrick Garland said the two employees of state-backed media company RT, formerly Russia Today, set up the scheme "to create and distribute content to US audiences with hidden Russian government messaging," the Daily Beast reports.

• Other influencers. The other three right-wing influencers named as "the talent" on Tenet Media's website along with Pool, Johnson, and Rubin are Lauren Southern, Tayler Hansen, and Matt Christiansen. Together, they have more than 7 million subscribers on YouTube, the AP reports.
• One contract was for $400K a month. According to the indictment, $8.7 million of the $9.7 million Tenet received from the Russians went to the production companies of three commentators, Wired reports. They were not named in the indictment. One commentator had a contract for $400,000 a month for four weekly videos, plus a $100,000 signing bonus.
• The goal was to "amplify domestic divisions." Many of the company's videos "contain commentary on events and issues in the US, such as immigration, inflation, and other topics related to domestic and foreign policy," the indictment states. While the views expressed in the videos are not uniform, most are directed to the publicly stated goals of the Government of Russia and RT—to amplify domestic divisions in the United States."

• Russians used "covert identities" to push narratives. The indictment states that the two Russians had "covert identities" at the company, with Kalashnikov posing as an outside editor and Afanasyeva posing as a member of his team. It states that Afanasyeva directed the posting of hundreds of videos and gave instructions to the company's staff, telling one of the founders after the March attack on a Moscow concert venue that they should "blame Ukraine and the United States for the attack."
• Commentators were duped. According to the indictment, the company's founders "actively concealed the company's links to Russia from the individual creators," Wired reports. Tenet was founded by Canadian right-wing influencer Lauren Chen and her husband, Liam Donovan.
• Pool says commentators are victims. "Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims," Pool said in a post on X. He said he retained full editorial control of his Culture War podcast under the agreement with Tenet. "Putin is a scumbag," he wrote.

(More Russia stories.)