They know nothing, nothing!
By now you’ve read that the Department of Justice has indicted two employees of Russia’s RT network for spending nearly $10 million to pump pro-Russian propaganda into the U.S. digital mindstream:
“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 U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts, and our investigation into this matter remains ongoing.”
“Our approach to combating foreign malign influence is actor-driven, exposing the hidden hand of adversaries pulling strings of influence from behind the curtain,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. “As alleged in today’s indictment, Russian state broadcaster RT and its employees, including the charged defendants, co-opted online commentators by funneling them nearly $10 million to pump pro-Russia propaganda and disinformation across social media to U.S. audiences. The Department will not tolerate foreign efforts to illegally manipulate American public opinion by sowing discord and division.”
Russia paid those coopted “online commentators” (far-right podcasters) enormous sums for spewing Kremlin talking points.
According to the court documents, RT, formerly known as Russia Today, is a state-controlled media outlet funded and directed by the Government of Russia. Over at least the past year, RT and its employees, including Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva, deployed nearly $10 million to covertly finance and direct a Tennessee-based online content creation company (U.S. Company-1). In turn, U.S. Company-1 published English-language videos on multiple social media channels, including TikTok, Instagram, X, and YouTube. Since publicly launching in or about November 2023, U.S. Company-1 has posted nearly 2,000 videos that have garnered more than 16 million views on YouTube alone. Many of the videos posted by U.S. Company-1 contain commentary on events and issues in the U.S., such as immigration, inflation, and other topics related to domestic and foreign policy. While the views expressed in the videos are not uniform, most are directed to the publicly stated goals of the Government of Russia and RT — to amplify domestic divisions in the United States.
Divisions over Russia’s war in Ukraine, in particular.
CBS News fleshes out the identity of U.S. Company-1:
Though the company is not named in the indictment, prosecutors said that it describes itself as a “network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues” and features six commentators as its “talent.” Tenet Media uses the same phrase in its description on its website, and other details in the indictment align with the firm. Its website lists six right-wing personalities, including Dave Rubin, who has more than 2.4 million YouTube subscribers; Tim Pool, a podcast host with more than 1.3 million YouTube followers; and Benny Johnson, whose YouTube channel has nearly 2.4 million subscribers.
[…]
Records with the Tennessee Secretary of State’s Office show that Tenet Media incorporated on Jan. 19, 2022, the same date of incorporation mentioned in the indictment, and is headquartered in Nashville. It was founded by Liam Donovan and his wife, Lauren Chen. The founders are referred to as Founder-1 and Founder-2 in the indictment and prosecutors said they jointly run the company.
Forbes offers profiles of the propagandists Russia allegedly funded. They claim not to have known who was paying them as much as $100,000 per week for creating Kremlin-friendly content.
Pool responded to the allegations on FKA Twitter. He’s an innocent victim:
FYI, this is Pool:
Johnson also claimed victimhood:
What time is it in Moscow?
The indictment offers this tidbit on Founder-2 on page 19 that suggests Tenet knew that “Eduard Grigoriann,” the investor Founder-1 represented as being Paris-based, was not, in fact, in Paris:
- Founder-2 also used the Investor Discord Channel to, among other things, submit U.S. Company-1 ‘s invoices to Persona-I, and to press for payment of those invoices. For example, on or about September 11 , 2023, at approximately 8:07 p.m. Central Time, Founder-2 wrote in the Investor Discord Channel: “Today marks two weeks since I submitted the invoice for August. Any idea for the delay? We are signing the large contracts and need to be certain we will get the funding to pay these people.” Persona-I did not immediately respond. While awaiting a reply from Persona-I, Founder-I searched for the then-current time in Moscow. Specifically, at approximately 8:50 p.m. Central Time on or about September 11, 2023, Founder-I searched on Google: “time in Moscow.” The time was, in fact, approximately 4:50 a.m. in Moscow.
Here’s another tidbit from page 24:
a. On or about February 15, 2024, AFANASYEVA (as “Helena Shudra”) shared with U.S. Company-I a video of a well-known U.S. political commentator visiting a grocery store in Russia. AF ANASYEV A posted the video in the Producer Discord Channel. Later that day, Producer-I privately messaged Founder-2 on Discord: “They want me to post this” – referencing the video that AF ANASYEVA had posted – but “it just feels like overt shilling.” Founder-2 replied that Founder-I “thinks we should put it out there.” Producer-I acquiesced, responding, “alright I’ll put it out tomorrow.”
Before signing on with Tenet, Commentator-1 (possibly Rubin) wanted some background on Eduard Grigoriann, the supposed Paris-based investor:
g. On or about April 21 , 2023 and again on or about April 24, 2023, Founder-1 performed Google searches for “Eduard Grigoriann” and for “[Bank-1] Eduard Grigoriann.” As of in or about August 2024, neither Google search returns any results for a person by that name, much less any webpages describing an “Eduard Grigoriann” as a finance professional affiliated with Bank-1.
What Commentator-1 eventually received was a fake bio (see page 13).
If an anonymous investor suddenly offered to invest in Hullabaloo at a loss of $100,000 per week (we take no advertising) to write what we’ve been writing daily, for free, for the last two decades, I’d be more suspicious about who it was and where the money was coming from and why. Maybe that’s just me.
Update: I meant to add a link to a post by Brian Klaas on the “Need for Chaos” voter, a unique personality trait researchers recently identified:
These individuals are not idealists seeking to tear down the established order so that they can build a better society for everyone. Rather, they indiscriminately share hostile political rumors as a way to unleash chaos and mobilize individuals against the established order that fails to accord them the respect that they feel they personally deserve.
As you might expect, this means that perceptions of a loss of status are really important. And if that’s true, then there will inevitably be a group that’s particularly worrisome, because they feel a relative loss of status in recent decades. That group, they found, is white men.