Media start-up from Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, and Dave Rubin was secret Russian influence campaign, indictment alleges

A media start-up from reactionary 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 also highlights one of the founders 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 and 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.

Update 4:37pm CT: In a statement on X, Pool said if the indictment was true, he was a "victim" and that he and other personalities were "deceived."

"The Culture War Podcast was licensed by Tenet Media, it existed well before any license agreement with Tenet and it will continue to exist after any such agreement expires. The only change with the agreement was that the location of the live broadcast moved to Tenet's YouTube channel."

Pool added that he always had full editorial control of the show and that "we still do not know what is true as these are only allegations."

Johnson said in a statement that he is "disturbed by the allegations in today's indictment, which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme."

Internet culture is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here. You’ll get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.

Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online.

The post Media start-up from Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, and Dave Rubin was secret Russian influence campaign, indictment alleges appeared first on The Daily Dot.