Is This Right-Wing Media Platform the Product of a $10 Million Russian Plot?

The Justice Department may have understated its findings in an indictment unsealed on Wednesday.

Manhattan federal prosecutors revealed the indictment as part of a long-running investigation into Russian efforts to interfere in U.S. elections, charging two employees of state-owned media firm RT with money laundering and violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Similar efforts have been confined to low-follower social media accounts, involving significant effort and expense, both on the part of Russian operatives and American investigators, with little discernible impact.

But the indictment on Wednesday of Konstantin Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, the two RT employees, may suggest an operation that resulted in greater reach, employing high-profile, well-known right-wing media personalities.

Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva, prosecutors allege, secretly financed and directed the operations of an American media company based in Tennessee. Prosecutors said in the indictment that the company described itself on its website as “a network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues.”

The description of the company in the indictment matches that of Tenet Media, a Tennessee firm created in January 2022.

Tenet Media appears to have worked with and hosted content from several prominent right-wing media personalities, including Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, Lauren Southern, and Dave Rubin.

Per the indictment, at least some of commentators are essentially victims: when they asked who was paying them, representatives of the company replied by fabricating a wealthy benefactor named “Eduard Grigoriann.”

Prosecutors also said that the company was incorporated on January 19, 2022. On that day, corporate records show, a company called Roaming USA Corp — doing business as Tenet Media — was created. Tennessee corporate records list Lauren Chen, a host on Blaze TV, and her husband Liam Davidson as associated with the company.

It was a $10 million effort, prosecutors said, and its videos racked up more than 16 million views on YouTube.

Per the charges, RT started in October 2023 to use shell companies in a variety of countries to transfer millions of dollars to the firm that matches Tenet Media’s description. In one case, a $318,000 wire payment from a Turkish firm was listed as for “BUYING GOODS-INV.013-IPHONE 15 PRO MAX 512GB,” prosecutors said.

From there, the two RT employees allegedly created fake personas on the messaging platform Discord, from which they edited content and directed video posts.

In one episode detailed by prosecutors, the company’s Canadian founders worked with the now-indicted Russians to allegedly “deceive” two commentators with millions of YouTube subscribers between them.

When the commentators asked during contract negotiations about the company’s sponsor, one of the Canadian founders sent a fake profile describing “Eduard Grigoriann,” an “accomplished finance professional” from Western Europe who was supposedly funding the venture.

That was enough for the unnamed commentator, who went on to produce around 130 videos for the platform, prosecutors said.

One conservative influencer featured on Tenet Media, Benny Johnson, issued a statement on Wednesday saying that his attorneys had negotiated a deal with an unnamed “media startup,” which was later terminated. Johnson added that the indictment makes it clear that he “and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme.”

Margarita Simonyan, the head of RT, mocked the indictment on X, writing “they have no other scenarios at all, except for sinking a competitor by scaring off the penguins with ties to the all-powerful RT.”

Emails and messages to Tenet Media employees, including to the two Canadian co-founders, were not returned as of this writing. We’ll update if any of them get back to us.