Find out what right-wing influencers really talked about in the Tenet media video allegedly funded by Russia

Prosecutors described the content of these videos as consistent with Russia’s aim to create political divisions in the US. Areas covered include: free speech, illegal immigration, diversity in video games, alleged racism towards white people, and Elon Musk.

Whereas indictment While Tenet is not named in the document unsealed earlier this week, WIRED and other outlets were able to identify it because prosecutors gave its motto as that of a business identified as “US Company-1.” Prosecutors allege that two employees of the state-backed Russian network RT, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, who are charged with conspiring to commit money laundering and violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, paid Tenet and its parent company $9.7 million to produce and distribute videos supporting Russian aims. Most of that money reportedly went to Tenet’s network of popular influencers, including Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and Lauren Southern.

The influencers have not responded to requests for comment (Johnson, Pool, Rubinand fellow talents Taylor Hansen and Matt Christiansen issued statements denying knowledge of the alleged Russian influence scheme and calling themselves its victims) – the government has not accused them of wrongdoing. Prosecutors say right-wing personality Lauren Chen and her husband Liam Donovan, the Canadian citizens who founded Tenet – the two who have not been charged with any crime are not named in the indictment but are linked to the business through corporate records – knew they were working with the Russians and failed to register “as an agent of a foreign principal as required by law.” The indictment alleges that the couple, who have not been charged, did not inform influencers or other Tenet employees about the source of their funding.

Nevertheless, Afanasyeva, using a fake persona, “edited, posted, and directed the postings”. [Tenet] for hundreds of videos, the indictment says. The indictment does not identify the specific videos allegedly influenced by RT employees, but prosecutors say they were intimately involved in Tenet’s editorial process: “While the views expressed in the videos are not uniform, the subject matter and content of the videos often align with the Russian government’s interest in exacerbating U.S. domestic divisions in order to undermine U.S. opposition to core Russian government interests, such as the ongoing war in Ukraine.”