How Russia Allegedly Funneled Money Into a U.S. Media Company to Pay Right-Wing Content Creators

With the presidential election two months away, U.S. officials are getting serious about Russian disinformation campaigns and other efforts to interfere with the nation’s politics. On Wednesday, this crackdown was made apparent via an indictment unsealed in New York’s Southern District Court showing sanctions on 10 individuals and entities; the seizure of 32 internet domains; and conspiracy charges against two Russia Today staffers, who are accused of funneling funds into an elaborate scheme that covertly manipulated online influencers to do the Kremlin’s bidding.

Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, 31, and Elena Afanasyeva, 27, each face charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act, according to the indictment issued by the U.S. Department of Justice. The two remain at large after allegedly funneling nearly $10 million into a media company based in Tennessee. The company goes unnamed in the indictment, but the DOJ’s thinly veiled description matches up with Tenet Media, which describes itself as “a network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues” 

The indictment states that Russia Today’s CEO has referred to an “entire empire of covert projects” designed to shape opinions in “Western audiences.” This has carried on via multiple influencers after the Kremlin-funded RT was banned from broadcasting in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva allegedly funneled funds into Tenet Media, which the Kremlin was using to “direct disinformation and propaganda at Western audiences,” the indictment states. 

Tenet Media is the recent home to polarizing media figures like David Rubin, Tim Pool and Benny Jonhson, who, along with three other influential right-wing pundits tapped by the company to create content, have a total YouTube following topping six million subscribers. Pool, formerly of Vice News and Fusion, interviewed former president and 2024 GOP nominee Donald Trump in May. A key goal of the Kremlin’s propaganda effort was to boost the candidacy of the GOP’s nominee in this year’s election, according to internal documents discovered at one of three Russian companies that the DOJ said this week used fake profiles to promote phony narratives on social platforms. 

Tenet Media is owned by Lauren Chen — also a right-wing online pundit with her own dedicated following — and her partner, Liam Donovan, who names himself on X (formerly Twitter) as the company’s CEO. Chen also has ties to Turning Points USA, which has now deleted pages related to her, and Blaze Media, which reportedly cut ties with Chen this week and took down the web page for her show on the network, called “Pseudo-Intellectual.”

“Lauren Chen was an independent contractor, whose contract has been terminated,” BlazeTV CEO Tyler Cardon told CNN on Thursday. Neither Chen nor Donovan are named in the indictment released this week. 

Multiple correspondences between the heads of the unnamed company, dubbed “Founder 1” and “Founder 2,” in the indictment contain direct references to “Russia” and “the Russians” as the funders behind the company’s activities.  

When approached to work with Tenet Media, the indictment states that influencers were told that the project was funded by a man named Eduard Grigoriann. However, the DOJ claims, Grigorian was “a fictional persona.” While one influencer, whose courting by Tenet and RT is described in the legal filing, expressed some trepidation and skepticism around the funding, they still agreed to a contract that gave them a $400,000 monthly fee and a $100,000 signing bonus to produce four weekly videos. 

All six of the influencers who were involved in the alleged Russian plot issued statements denying their knowledge of who was funding their work and claimed they were victims of the Russian operation.

“We are disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment, which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme,” wrote Johnson, who was embroiled in a 2014 plagiarism scandal when Buzzfeed, where he worked as a staff writer, discovered 41 instances of him lifting work from outside sources. 

Pool, who emerged as a live streamer during the Occupy Wall Street protests and then segued into and out of media startups to run six YouTube channels, including the popular Timcast, said that he was “deceived” by Tenet Media and asserted that his show remains editorially independent. 

“Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims,” Pool wrote on X. “The show is produced in its entirety by our local team without input from anyone external to the company.”

Rubin, whose early career in the New York comedy scene was followed by a move into political commentary, is the host of The Rubin Report, a political talk show on YouTube and BlazeTV. He also claimed victimhood in the elaborate scheme following the unsealing of the indictment. 

“These allegations clearly show that I and other commentators were the victims of this scheme,” he wrote in a statement also posted to X. “I knew absolutely nothing about any of this fraudulent activity. Period. The DoJ has never contacted me regarding this matter and I have no intention to comment further.”