How some of the biggest right-wing social media stars became unwitting mouthpieces of Russian propaganda

(CNN) — They’re not on any of the major television networks, but they have millions of viewers. Now, the Justice Department is alleging that some of the biggest stars in right-wing social media were, unwittingly, part of a sinister Russian operation to influence the 2024 US election.

The personalities weren’t directly named or accused of wrongdoing by the Justice Department, but court documents unsealed Wednesday revealed Russian state media producers funneled nearly $10 million to an unnamed Tennessee-based online media company. The company, identified by CNN as Tenet Media, boasts a slate of high-profile right-wing commentators as “talent,” including Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, Lauren Southern, Tayler Hansen, Matt Christiansen and Dave Rubin, collectively boasting millions of followers across social media platforms.

Two Russian state media employees were charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act and money laundering.

The secret payments pull back the curtain on some of the most popular right-wing personalities, who were paid millions of dollars by the Kremlin, without their knowledge according to the Justice Department to promote conservative narratives that furthered Russian interests. And while the influencer, podcaster, and online content creator space is booming, the indictment shows how open the new media ecosystem is to infiltration, where independent creators operate with few guardrails and little transparency.

What is Tenet Media?

Tenet Media launched last year, describing itself as “a network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues” with six commentators, all of whom had established online presences in the conservative media ecosystem.

Some of Tenet’s commentators had careers at more mainstream media outlets prior to striking out on their own: Tim Pool was a reporter at Vice Media and Benny Johnson was a writer at BuzzFeed and the Independent Journal Review (Johnson was let go from both outlets) before becoming MAGA influencers.

Rubin, once known as a libertarian who worked at the progressive network The Young Turks before making a right turn into conservative media, hosts his show “The Rubin Report” on Blaze TV and YouTube. Others, like Lauren Southern, have made their name in the online alt-right, White nationalism spaces (Southern has previously denied being a White nationalist).

The commentators assembled by Tenet boasted more than 6 million YouTube subscribers, but their influence has extended well beyond the Google-owned video platform. Pool, known for donning a black beanie on his broadcasts, has used his show to host far-right extremists, including Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and Jack Posobiec. Earlier this year, Pool interviewed former President Donald Trump on his podcast.

Johnson, who boasts nearly 2.4 million subscribers on YouTube and is a former chief creative officer of the right-wing activist group Turning Point USA, interviewed Donald Trump Jr. on the Tenet platform in February.

The influencers’ deals with Tenet varied, with the outlet exclusively hosting some of their shows while also cross posting the creators’ other content. According to the indictment, one of the unnamed social media stars  was paid $400,000 per month to create videos for the platform, with  another unnamed influencer also receiving a $100,000 signing bonus.

Christiansen said during a live stream Wednesday that he was approached last June by Tenet Media co-founders Lauren Chen and her husband, Liam Donovan to join the network, claiming that they could help him get more “eyes” on his content. Neither Chen or Donovan are named in the indictment.

Chen, a right-wing media personality who hosted a show for Blaze TV and contributed to Turning Point USA, had amassed more than 572,000 subscribers on her YouTube account before it was taken down Thursday. Blaze Media fired Chen the day after the indictment was unsealed by the Justice Department.

Representatives for Tenet did not return a request for comment.

Russian narratives on display

According to the indictment, employees from Russian state media outlet RT allegedly funded and directed the company, hoping to plug in to the commentators’ vast network of fans to exploit divisive narratives that achieved the Kremlin’s goals. Much of the partnership appeared to simply amplify what were already simpatico views between the Kremlin and the company’s influencers. According to intelligence agencies the Kremlin has sought to boost Donald Trump’s candidacy, questioning the West’s support for Ukraine and criticizing elements of the LGBTQ movement.

The Justice Department said the views in the influencer videos promoted Kremlin interests and narratives, including increasing domestic division and aimed “to weaken U.S. opposition to core Government of Russia interests, such as its ongoing war in Ukraine.”

While Russia and the Republican Party under Trump have become increasingly aligned in their views, Russia’s military action in Ukraine became fodder for Tenet’s influencers.

“Ukraine is the enemy of this country!,” Pool yelled on a live stream last month. “Ukraine is our enemy, being funded by the Democrats. I will stress again, one of the greatest enemies of our nation right now is Ukraine.”

In another instance the Russian funders directly asked a Tenet co-founder on or about March 23 to “blame Ukraine and the United States” for a terrorist attack on a concert hall outside of Moscow that killed more than 130 people. While ISIS took responsibility for the attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin insinuated Ukraine had a role in the massacre. Kyiv denied any role in the massacre.

“Founder-I responded that Founder-I would ask Commentator-3, and, the next day, confirmed that Commentator-3 said, “he’s happy to cover it,” the indictment stated. The identity of “Commentator-3” is not yet clear.

The day before on March 22, Johnson suggested in a video on his personal channel that Ukraine may be connected to the attack, saying he found it “a little too on the nose for me” for the US to have issued a warning about possible terrorist attacks in the days before the attack took place. It is not clear whether Johnson is “commentator-3” or whether he happened to have already posted a video that fit in with the request. Johnson has denied any knowledge of the Russian funding and has asserted his editorial independence.

In a post on X on Saturday evening, Johnson denied any connection between the request outlined in the indictment and his show. “I never received any request for coverage, never covered this on Tenet and never covered the topic again on any platform,” he said.

Other narratives pushed by the Russian-paid influencers fit in with the Kremlin’s goals, such as fear mongering about migrant gangs and boosting the candidacy of Trump, who US intelligence agencies said Russia supported in the 2020 election.

In 2022, Pool said that while a mass shooting attack on a Colorado LGBTQ nightclub where a man killed five people and injured 19 was “wrong,” he suggested that the club, which had held an “all ages drag brunch” meant it supported “grooming children.”

“We shouldn’t tolerate pedophiles grooming kids,” Pool posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Club Q had a grooming event. How do prevent the violence and stop the grooming?”

The notion that LGBTQpeople are pedophiles or groomers is an extreme homophobic conspiracy theory that is often floated in far-right circles as a justification for anti-LGBTQ policies.

Last November, Rubin attacked Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has called Putin a “monster,” after Trudeau urged Israel to show restraint in its military campaign against Hamas following the October 7 attack.

Trudeau is “an evil communist piece of sh–,” Rubin wrote in an X post, who should “just come out of the closet already,” neither statements are true.

The Justice Department said the commentators were not aware that the source of the funding originated with Russia, and at least one of the commentators was told a fake European investor named Eduard Grigoriann was behind the payments.

“In truth and fact,” the indictment reads, “Grigoriann was a fictional persona.”

The Tenet influencers who have spoken out since the indictment was unsealed have all said they were unaware of the Russian funding and that they were victims of the scheme.

“Never at any point did anyone other than I have full editorial control of the show and the contents of the show are often apolitical,” Pool said.

At least three of the commentators have publicly stated they were later contacted by the FBI for voluntary interviews as possible victims of a crime.

“Overt shilling”

The Russians also pushed Tenet to promote videos that were going viral on social media, according to the indictment. In one case, Tenet staffers were asked to repost a video of “a well-known U.S. political commentator,” thought to be former Fox News host Tucker Carlson visiting a grocery store in Russia in February, where Carlson fawned over the quality, selection and price of groceries.

“It just feels like overt shilling,” one employee identified as “Producer-1” wrote in an internal chat to one of the company’s founders, according to the indictment.

But the producer eventually acquiesced to pressure from one of Tenet’s founders, responding, “alright I’ll put it out tomorrow,” the indictment said.

“This is why information laundering is so pernicious,” said disinformation expert Nina Jankowicz, a co-founder of the American Sunlight Project. “These folks are after their bottom line, so they post rage bait that will perform well, rake in views and likes, and make their ‘producers’ happy.”

“These folks aren’t doing due diligence about who is paying them, and millions of Americans are going to them for ‘unvarnished’ takes on the news of the day,” she added.

Tenet Media has not responded to requests for comment and stopped posting content on Wednesday.  One of the company’s listed talent, Tayler Hansen, posted Thursday “TENET Media has ended after the DOJ indictment.”

Russia’s long running influence campaigns

The Russian government has a long history of tapping Americans as part of disinformation and influence operations aimed at stoking divisions in the US and promoting Russia’s interests.

In recent years, Russia has successfully leveraged social media and the anonymity provided by the internet to infiltrate American social movements on the right and on the left. Sometimes this was in the form of trolls and bots, but other cases involved real Americans unwittingly doing the bidding of Russian agents.

After the 2016 US presidential election, congressional and federal investigations showed Moscow had successfully co-opted unwitting Americans to stage protests, run social media accounts and host events at its behest. In Soviet Cold War jargon, they’re referred to as “useful idiots” — people who don’t know they are doing Russia’s bidding.

“Well-resourced state actors use broadcast & social media simultaneously, across the overt to covert spectrum,” wrote Renee DiResta, a former research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory and author of the book “Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality.”

“At this point there are a bunch of strategies Russia is working concurrently; as one is made more costly/less effective, they leverage others,” she added. “This situation is essentially a front media operation - a fairly old approach, though now the most effective useful idiots may be influencers rather than journalists of yore.”

Donie O’Sullivan contributed to this report 

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