Justice Department says two Russians funded top conservative online media figures

The Justice Department on Wednesday charged two employees of the state-backed Russian media company RT, saying they funded and directed coverage of a conservative U.S. 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 to 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, but is identified as a Tennessee-based corporation that houses six commentators and describes itself as a “network of heterodox commentators focusing on Western political and cultural issues.”

That matches the exact language and number of commenters listed on the website of TENET Media, a Tennessee-based video distribution platform owned by conservative founders Liam Donovan and Lauren Chen that is home to 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 named 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 approached my company about providing content as an independent contractor,” Johnson wrote. “Our attorneys negotiated a standard agreement, unbeknownst to anyone, which was later terminated. We are concerned about the allegations contained in today’s indictment, which make clear that I and other influencers were victims of this alleged scheme. My attorneys will pursue anyone who claims or suggests otherwise.”

Pool also claimed to be a victim by naming TENET as the company he signed a licensing agreement with in a post on X.

“If these allegations turn out to be true, I and other celebrities and commentators were misled and are victims,” Pool wrote. “I cannot speak for anyone else in the company about what they do or what they are ordered to do.”

He added: “Putin is a bastard, Russia is shit.”

Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva allegedly contacted TENET founders Donovan and Chen, referred to as “Founder-1” and “Founder-2” in the indictment, through the false personas of “Eduard Grigoriann,” a fictitious Belgian financier, and his fictitious agents. Posing as “Grigoriann” and his agents, the two Russians said they were seeking to finance a media company.

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

The relationship between the conservative media company and Grigoriann reportedly began in December 2022, when Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva discussed with the company’s founders the possibility of launching a new YouTube channel. 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 backers that Commentator-1 wanted to be paid $5 million “to make it interesting,” while Commentator-2 would need $100,000 per weekly episode “to make it worth their while,” according to the indictment.

The indictment says both commentators were misled about the source of the money they would ultimately receive. Both sought confirmatory information about the identity of “Grigoriann” from the founders of the conservative media company and were directed to fake biographies. They spoke to a person claiming to be “Grigoriann” via encrypted communication services.

None of the commenters suspected anything was amiss after these communications, except that Commenter-1 questioned the inclusion of the phrase “social justice” in the fake bio, according to the indictment. The founders had to explain to their funders that “that’s a term that liberals often use, but we’re trying to build a conservative network.”

Commentator 1 eventually signed a contract with the conservative media company that paid him $400,000 a month with a $100,000 signing bonus and other performance-related bonuses, while Commentator 2 agreed to receive $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 company that advised on video production and social media distribution and oversaw the company’s hiring and funding. They asked the company’s founders to encourage their talent to post more of the network’s content on social media and promoted pro-Russian messages.

In one instance, Afanasyeva, using an alias, asked a producer to post a video on the company’s social media that featured Tucker Carlson excited about his visit to a supermarket in Russia.

“They want me to publish this, but it looks like open propaganda,” the producer wrote to one of the founders of the conservative network, according to the indictment.

Following an attack by the ISIS-Khorasan terrorist group on a concert hall in Moscow that left 145 people dead, Afanasyeva allegedly pressured the founders to report that the attack was carried out by Ukraine with US support.

“I think we can focus on the Ukraine/US angle… Mainstream media outlets spread fake news that ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, but ISIS itself never made such statements,” Afanasyeva wrote, according to the indictment. “All terrorists are now detained as they are heading to the Ukrainian border, which makes it even more suspicious that they want to go to Ukraine to hide.”

One of the founders of the conservative network said that Commentator-3, whose identifying information was not provided, is “happy to cover it.”

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

In another case, an email purporting to have come from a fake person was signed “Eduard Grigoriann.” The Russians allegedly attempted to correct the error by replying: “Eduard forwarded this email to me and asked me to reproduce it on his behalf.” However, the indictment alleges that digital forensic evidence shows that all the emails were sent from the same IP address.

Of the $10 million the conservative media company received, the majority went to paying the influencers it hired. Commenter-1, Commenter-2, and Commenter-3 reportedly received “approximately $8.7 million.”

Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva reside in Russia and are unlikely to appear in a U.S. court. Neither Chen nor Donovan, the founders of TENET, have been charged for failing to register under FARA.

However, a Justice Department 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 agents of a foreign principal.”