Conservative Influencers Implicated in Alleged Russian Plot to Influence US Voting

An indictment filed on Wednesday alleges that a US media company working with conservative influencers, including Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin, Lauren Southern, and others, has secretly received funding from the Russian state media employees.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) does not accuse the influencers of any wrongdoing, noting that some may have been misled about the true source of the company’s funding. DOJ charged two employees of RT, a Russian state media organization, for allegedly channeling nearly $10 million to a Tennessee-based content creation company to produce pro-Russian content.

“The Justice Department has charged two employees of RT, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, in a $10 million scheme to create and distribute content to US audiences with hidden Russian government messaging,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland. “The Justice Department’s message is clear: We will have no tolerance for attempts by authoritarian regimes to exploit our democratic systems of government.”

It is alleged that the Russian state broadcaster RT orchestrated a massive scheme to influence the American public by secretly planting and financing a content creation company on US soil, stated US Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York. 

The DOJ indictment does not name the company directly but describes it as a Tennessee-based content creation firm with six commentators and a website that identifies itself as “a network of heterodox commentators focusing on Western political and cultural issues.” This matches Tenet Media which works with known conservative influencers such as Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, and others.

“The instruments of the scheme were RT employees Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, who managed the operation from Moscow using fake personas and shell companies, and the victims of the scheme were the American people, who received Russian messaging without knowing it,” Williams said.

US law enforcement and intelligence officials have reported that Russia’s Vladimir Putin authorized influence operations to support Trump in the 2020 election and denigrate President Biden's candidacy and the Democratic Party. Additionally, they revealed that Trump's 2016 campaign benefited from Russian intelligence hacking and a covert social media campaign.