DOJ Alleges Russia Gave $10M to Right-Wing Media Outlet Tenet Media

Chris Menahan
InformationLiberation
Sep. 05, 2024

The conservative media outlet Tenet Media was funded to the tune of nearly $10 million by the Russians, according to a DOJ indictment released on Wednesday.

How it started:


How it's going...

From CNN, "DOJ alleges Russia funded US media company linked to right-wing social media stars":
The unnamed Tennessee-based company that the Justice Department alleges was being funded by Russian operatives working as part of a Kremlin-orchestrated influence operation targeting the 2024 US election is Tenet Media, which is linked to right-wing commentators with millions of subscribers on YouTube and other social media platforms, according to a US official briefed on the matter.

The indictment unsealed in New York's Southern District accused two employees of RT, the Kremlin's media arm, of funneling nearly $10 million to an unidentified company, described only as "Company 1" in court documents.

CNN has independently confirmed that "Company 1" is Tenet Media, which is a platform for independent content creators. It is self-described as a "network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues," according to its website, which matches language contained in the newly unsealed indictment.

The goal of the operation, according to prosecutors, was to fuel pro-Russian narratives, in part, by pushing content and news articles favoring Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and others who the Kremlin deemed to be friendlier to its interests.

The indictment also says that Company 1's website identifies six commentators.

Among the commentators listed on Tenet Media's website are right-wing personalities Benny Johnson and Tim Pool. Both have millions of subscribers on YouTube and other social media platforms. Pool interviewed Trump on his podcast in May.
Mother Jones has more:
The indictment also alleges that not everyone affiliated with Tenet was unaware of the scheme, stating that "Founders 1 and 2" of the company knew the source of their funding. The founders of Tenet Media are Lauren Chen and her husband; Chen is a conservative influencer and YouTuber who's hosted a show on Blaze TV and who's affiliated with Turning Point USA. Her husband, Liam Donovan, identifies himself on Twitter as the president of Tenet Media.

The indictment alleges that the RT officials and Founders 1 and 2 "also worked together to deceive two U.S. online commentators ("Commentator-I" and "Commentator-2"), who respectively have over 2.4 million and 1.3 million YouTube subscribers." Dave Rubin has 2.4 million YouTube subscribers, while Tim Pool has 1.37 million.

The indictment indicates that even some of the people working at Tenet found their content heavy-handed. On February 15 of this year, Afanasyeva, using the name Helena Shudra, shared a video in a company Discord channel of what the indictment calls "a well-known U.S. political commentator visiting a grocery store in Russia." While he's not named in the indictment, it clearly matches Tucker Carlson, who toured such a grocery store, declaring himself slackjawed in wonder at how nice it was.

"Later that day," the indictment adds, "Producer-I privately messaged Founder-2 on Discord: 'They want me to post this'—referencing the video that Afanasyeva posted—but 'it just feels like overt shilling.' Founder-2 replied that Founder-I 'thinks we should put it out there.' Producer-I acquiesced, responding, 'alright I'll put it out tomorrow.'"
The real victims here are the Russian taxpayers who had their money wasted on this worthless scheme.








Their channel didn't really take off and their most popular video was almost certainly when they went to the San Francisco Pride Parade and filmed gay men urinating on each other in the street.



Such stories are now a major focus of right-wing journalism.




Israel First influencers are hilariously taking a victory lap over the indictment.







While Merrick Garland is eager and willing to file this indictment, we all know he's not going to do anything about this foreign influence:



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