A media start-up from reactionaries luminaries such as Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin, Lauren Southern, and others secretly received funding from Russia, a new federal indictment alleges.
The Department of Justice charged two employees of Russia Today with violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), saying they participated in "a $10 million scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging."
The press release from the DOJ says that "Russian state broadcaster RT orchestrated a massive scheme to influence the American public by secretly planting and financing a content creation company on U.S. soil."
Was Tenet Media funded by Russia?
Although the company isn't listed in the indictment, context clues reveal it is most likely Tenet Media.
"On its website, U.S. Company-I describes itself as a 'network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues' and identifies six commentators— including Commentator-I and Commentator-2—as its 'talent,'" the indictment alleges.
On YouTube, Tenet Media describes itself as "a network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues."
Its homepage highlights six commentators: Rubin, Johnson, Pool, Southern, as well as Tayler Hansen and Matt Christiansen.
The indictment does highlight the founder of Tenet, Lauren Chen, claiming she worked to deceive the commentators about the funding of the group.
Chen is listed as a contributor on Russia Today's site, which is mentioned in the indictment.
In the indictment, the incorporation dates line up with Tenet Media's creation. The indictment also calls out two specific commentators whose followings on social media align with that of Pool and either Rubin or Johnson.
"Founder-I and Founder-2 also worked together to deceive two U.S. online commentators ("Commentator-I" and "Commentator-2"), who respectively have over 2.4 million and 1.3 million YouTube subscribers."
On YouTube, Rubin has 2.44 million and Johnson has 2.39 million. Pool has 1.37 million followers
On Oct. 23, 2023, Pool highlighted the launch of Tenet.
In a hype video, Pool said "I worked for several massive corporate news organizations, what did I learn, they lie. Their agenda matters more than the truth."
The indictment claims the personalities on Tenet were not aware of the backgrounds and intentions of the two Russians, but that the funding for the company came through a Canadian shell company, from a front man named "Eduard Grigoriann," who did not exist.
Despite the fact that Google searches for Eduard Grigoriann did not return any hits, the two commentators went through with the deal, the indictment alleges, after receiving a resume.
In it, however, they did note the fake founder may come across as too woke, flagging a commitment to "social justice" found on his profile. Regardless, they still went along with the deal.
While the news came as a shock, when the company launched, numerous posters were initially suspicious.
"Who is funding this," asked The Quartering.
"This is like the Avengers of online grifters..." wrote another.
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