DOJ Says 2 Russians Funded Big-Name Online Conservative Media Personalities

The Department of Justice indicted two employees of the state-backed Russian media company RT on Wednesday, saying they funded and directed the coverage of a U.S. conservative media outlet in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

The indictment alleges that two Russians, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, funneled nearly $10 million into the U.S. media company as part of a Kremlin-backed effort to influence American audiences in favor of Russian government priorities, and says they failed to register as agents of a foreign government as required by law.

The conservative network is not named in the indictment. However, it is identified as a Tennessee-based corporation hosting six commentators that describes itself as a “network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues.”

That matches the exact language and number of commentators listed on the website of the Tennessee-based TENET Media, a video distribution platform owned by conservative founders Liam Donovan and Lauren Chen that hosts conservative influencers including Dave Rubin, Tim Pool, Benny Johnson and Lauren Southern. Chen did not immediately respond to an email, and HuffPost was unable to reach Donovan.

However, CNN has independently confirmed that the company mentioned in the indictment is TENET.

In a post on X on Wednesday that was retweeted by Rubin, Johnson acknowledged that he was an unwitting victim of the alleged scheme.

“A year ago, a media startup pitched my company to provide content as an independent contractor,” Johnson wrote. “Our lawyers negotiated a standard, arms length deal, which was later terminated. We are disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment, which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme. My lawyers will handle anyone who states or suggests otherwise.”

Pool also stated that he was a victim while naming TENET as the company that he entered into a licensing agreement with in a post on X.

“Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims,” Pool wrote. “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.”

Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva allegedly approached TENET’s founders, Donovan and Chen, who are referred to as “Founder-1” and “Founder-2” in the indictment, through the false personas of “Eduard Grigoriann,” a fictional Belgian financier, and his fictional agents. Posing as “Grigoriann” and his agents, the two Russians said they were seeking to fund a media venture.

The founders, however, repeatedly referred to their funding source as “the Russians,” according to the indictment.

The relationship between the conservative media company and “Grigoriann” allegedly began in December 2022, when Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva discussed launching a new YouTube channel with the company’s founders. After registering the corporation, the founders sought to hire talent for the new platform.

They allegedly suggested two conservative influencers, “Commentator-1,” with 2.4 million followers on X, and “Commentator-2,” with 1.3 million followers.

Two of TENET’s hosts — Rubin and Johnson — have 2.4 million followers, while Pool has 1.3 million.

The founders told their Russian funders that Commentator-1 wanted to be paid $5 million “for him to be interested,” while Commentator-2 would need $100,000 per weekly episode “to make it worth his while,” according to the indictment.

The indictment says that both commentators were deceived about the source of the money they would ultimately receive. They both sought out confirming information on the identity of “Grigoriann” from the conservative media company’s founders and were directed to false bios. They talked to a person purporting to be “Grigoriann” through encrypted communication services.

Neither commentator suspected anything was amiss after these communications, save for Commentator-1 questioning the inclusion of the phrase “social justice” on the fake bio, the indictment said. The founders had to explain to their funders that “that’s usually a term used by liberals, but we’re trying to create a conservative network.”

Commentator-1 ultimately signed a contract with the conservative media company that paid him $400,000 per month with a $100,000 signing bonus and other performance-related bonuses, while Commentator-2 agreed to be paid $100,000 per video, according to the indictment.

After the conservative network launched, Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva allegedly acted — often under aliases — as an outside editing firm that consulted on video production and social media distribution and oversaw hiring and financing for the company. They asked the company founders to encourage their talent to post more of the network’s content on social media and promoted pro-Russia messages.

In one instance, Afanasyeva, through an alias, asked a producer to post a video on the company’s social media feeds of Tucker Carlson gushing over his visit to a supermarket in Russia.

“They want me to post this [but] it just feels like overt shilling,” the producer wrote to one of the conservative network’s founders, according to the indictment.

After an attack by the terrorist group ISIS-Khorasan on a concert hall in Moscow that left 145 dead, Afanasyeva allegedly pushed the founders to report that the attack was carried out by Ukraine with support from the U.S.

“I think we can focus on the Ukraine/U.S. angle …. [T]he mainstream media spread fake news that ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack yet ISIS itself never made such statements,” Afanasyeva wrote, the indictment said. “All terrorists are now detained while they were heading to the border with Ukraine which makes it even more suspicious why they would want to go to Ukraine to hide.”

One of the conservative network’s founders stated that Commentator-3, for whom no identifying information is provided, is “happy to cover it.”

Despite the efforts to mask their identities through a series of shell companies across Europe, Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva did not fully cover their tracks, the indictment claims. They repeatedly misspelled “Grigoriann” in emails with the conservative network’s founders and commentators.

In another instance, an email that was supposed to be from a separate false persona was signed “Eduard Grigoriann.” The Russians allegedly tried to correct the error by replying, “Eduard forwarded this email to me and asked me to replay [sic] on his behalf.” However, the indictment alleges that digital forensic evidence shows that all of the emails were sent from the same IP address.

Of the $10 million that the conservative media company received, most of it went to pay the influencers it hired. Commentator-1, Commentator-2 and Commentator-3 allegedly received “approximately $8.7 million.”

Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva reside in Russia and are unlikely to see a U.S. courtroom. Neither Chen nor Donovan, TENET’s founders, have been charged for failing to register under FARA.

However, a DOJ press release states that the media company and its founders “never disclosed to its viewers that it was funded and directed by RT,” nor did they “register with the Attorney General as an agent of a foreign principal.”