A Tennessee-based media company with prominent MAGA personalities on its roster has been accused of receiving millions of dollars from two employees of Russian state-backed media company Russia Today (RT) in order to influence American viewers.
According to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, the Russian employees created a $10 million scheme “to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging.”
While described as “U.S. Company 1” in an unsealed indictment Wednesday, clues suggest that it is Tenet Media, which has been named in various reports as the firm in question.
The indictment describes how Company-1’s website describes itself as a “network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues.” It employs six commentators as its “talent.”
The far-right YouTube commentators on Tenet Media’s roster include Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin, Taylor Hansen, Lauren Southern and Matt Christiansen. The indictment does not name names, but identifies the internet personalities simply as “Commentator-1” and “Commentator-2”.
The Daily Beast reached out to Pool, Rubin and Tenet for comment but did not receive an immediate reply. Johnson, however, said in a statement on X that “we are disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment, which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme.”
Pool, in his own statement on X, wrote, “Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims. I cannot speak for anyone else at the company as to what they do or to what they are instructed.”
He added: “Putin is a scumbag, Russia sucks donkey balls.”
The company, through its Rumble page, has made hundreds of videos, all with a conservative bent. Some of which, such as, “What Will The Future Under Trump Look Like? | Benny Johnson & Lara Trump” actively support former President Donald Trump.
Trump has appeared alongside Pool on Pool’s IRL Podcast—and he even visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in May.
The DOJ probe into the employees of RT, identified as Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, 31, and Elena Afanasayev, 27, claims that the two “deployed nearly $10 million to covertly finance and direct a Tennessee-based online content creation company (U.S. Company-1). In turn, U.S. Company-1 published English-language videos on multiple social media channels, including TikTok, Instagram, X, and YouTube. Since publicly launching in or about November 2023, U.S. Company-1 has posted nearly 2,000 videos that have garnered more than 16 million views on YouTube alone.”
The indictment claims that while “Founder-I, and Founder-2 worked together to mask U.S. Company-1’s true source of funding,” the commentators themselves were allegedly tricked, adding Founder-I, and Founder-2 “also worked together to deceive two U.S. online commentators, who respectively have over 2.4 million and 1.3 million YouTube subscribers.” Dave Rubin’s The Rubin Report has 2.4 million YouTube subscribers, while Tim Pool’s YouTube page has 1.37 million.
Tenet Media was founded by Liam Donovan and his wife, conservative influencer Lauren Chen. The indictment shows that even as some employees questioned the material, “Founder-I, and Founder-2” still pushed the content to go live.
“On or about February 15, 2024, AFANASYEVA (as “Helena Shudra”) shared with U.S. Company-I a video of a well-known U.S. political commentator visiting a grocery store in Russia,” the indictment reads, notably pointing to Tucker Carlson’s visit to the country without directly naming him.
“It just feels like overt shilling,” a producer wrote in the private discord message to Founder 2 in reference to the video. Founder 2 replied that Founder-I “thinks we should put it out there.” The producer responded, “alright I’ll put it out tomorrow.”
Russia Today responded to the allegations to Reuters “with ridicule,” according to the outlet: “Three things are certain in life: death, taxes and RT’s interference in the U.S. elections.”
