The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Wednesday that it had seized 32 domains linked to a Russian election campaign that allegedly spread propaganda to sway voters in the U.S. and other countries. It also charged two employees of Russian state-run media network RT (formerly Russia Today) with secretly providing funds to conservative U.S. media companies to advance Russian interests.
Indictment
According to a press release announcing the indictment:
“The Department of Justice has charged two employees of the Russian state-owned media company RT with participating in a $10 million scheme to produce and distribute content with veiled Russian government messaging to American audiences,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said. “The Department of Justice will not tolerate attempts by authoritarian regimes to exploit our nation's free exchange of ideas to covertly advance their own propaganda efforts, and our investigation into this matter is ongoing.”
The “instruments” in the alleged scheme were two Russian nationals, Kostyantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, who the Department of Justice indicted on charges of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and money laundering conspiracy. Both are currently fugitives.
Tenet Media
While the Justice Department's indictment does not directly identify the “Tennessee-based online content production company” that allegedly received Russian funding, the details provided closely match Tenet Media, a platform that describes itself as “a network of unorthodox commentators focused on Western political and cultural issues,” as well as “Company-1,” which the Justice Department mentioned in the indictment.
Tenet Media's website lists popular conservative names in its lineup, including Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin, Lauren Southern, Taylor Hansen and Matt Christiansen.
Tenet Media's YouTube channel, which boasts more than 316,000 subscribers, features content from Poole, Johnson and Christiansen that primarily covers political issues and cultural debates. The latest videos are dedicated to criticizing Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the Democratic National Convention, immigrant crime and pro-life issues.
According to the indictment:
U.S. Company I has employed three staff producers — Producer I, Producer 2, and a third person (“Producer 3”) — as well as an outside editing company purportedly staffed by KALASHNIKOV, AFANASYEVA, and others, to support the production and release of the video.
The Justice Department alleges that Afanasyeva provided the company's staff with approximately 841 video clips, which were regularly uploaded to social media channels, in 2024. By June 2024, one of Tenet's founders had authorized two Russian agents to upload content directly to the platform.
The Justice Department said the company received $10 million from Russian sources to produce English-language videos for various social media channels that addressed “topics related to inflation, immigration, and other domestic and international policies” with the goal of “increasing division within the United States.”
Many of the influencers associated with Tenet Media have large followings on social media and video-sharing platforms such as X and YouTube. While the Department of Justice indictment does not name any specific individuals, it does cite Commentator 1 and Commentator 2 as having over 2.4 million and 1.3 million YouTube subscribers, respectively. These figures are roughly in line with those of Dave Rubin and Tim Pool, who have 2.45 million and 1.37 million YouTube subscribers, respectively.
The indictment does not accuse the influencers of knowingly cheating, suggesting instead that they were misled by the company's founder and Russian operatives. Tenet founder Lauren Chen and her husband allegedly knew the funds' true source but misled critics by claiming that the money came from a wealthy private investor named “Eduard Grigoryan.”
The indictment documents reveal that at least one person requested a profile from “Grigoryan” before agreeing to the deal, and was then provided with a fake one-page profile.
Influencer statements
Poole said in a statement on X on Wednesday that if the allegations prove true, “I, along with other personalities and commentators, have been deceived and victimized.” He stressed that he alone has “full editorial control” over the “often apolitical” content, adding that “Putin is a despicable man.”
Johnson and Rubin echoed similar sentiments, saying they were also victims of the alleged scheme.
Doppelganger
In a separate statement on Wednesday, the Justice Department announced it had seized 32 internet domains used to carry out a “Russian government-led malign foreign influence campaign” known as “Doppelganger.” The sites were allegedly used to “covertly spread Russian government propaganda, undermine international support for Ukraine, bolster pro-Russian policies and interests, and influence voters in U.S. and foreign elections, including the 2024 U.S. presidential election.”
Merrick Garland's statement said the campaign was orchestrated by associates of Russian President Valdimir Putin “to secure Russia's desired outcome in the election.”
Additionally, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on 10 individuals, as well as Russian nonprofit organization ANO Dialogue and state-run media outlet RT, for allegedly conducting a disinformation campaign.
Department of Justice Election Preparation
The Department of Justice, along with its branch, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), has been found to have engaged in a broad censorship campaign on behalf of the Biden administration, including pressuring social media companies to moderate content, including suppressing stories about Hunter Biden's laptop, but it is also actively working to combat foreign interference in elections and “counter the spread of misinformation.”
Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that the Justice Department said it would not “pressure social media companies to remove or block content when the government shares information about foreign threats to national security or our elections, following previous allegations that the platforms had been coerced.”
In the document cited by the media, the Justice Department promised to focus on “thwarting the foreign activists behind the accounts and exposing their hidden hands,” leaving it up to the companies to decide how to deal with problematic content.
