Right-Wing Company Tenet Media Was Secretly Funded By Russian Government, Federal Prosecutors Say

U.S. prosecutors charge that Russian state media employees had secretly funded conservative media company Tenet Media.

Two Russian nationals working for Russia Today (RT), a media outlet funded and controlled by the Russian government, funneled millions of dollars to Tenet, which publishes videos on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and X.

U.S. prosecutors said in charging documents that the money was used to pay right-wing influencers for videos promoting narratives appealing to the Kremlin.

The unsealed indictment in the Southern District of New York charged Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, both based in Moscow, with conspiracy to launder money and infringe on the Foreign Agents Registration Act. 

Federal prosecutors said RT oversaw many “covert projects,” such as funneling $10 million through various shell entities to Tenet.

“Many of the videos published by U.S. Company-1 contain commentary on events and issues in the United States, such as immigration, inflation, and other topics related to domestic and foreign policy,” the indictment stated. 

“While the views expressed in the videos are not uniform, the subject matter and content of the videos are often consistent with the Government of Russia’s interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions in order to weaken U.S. opposition to core Government of Russia interests, such as its ongoing war in Ukraine,” it noted.

Though the company is not named in the indictment, prosecutors said it describes itself as a “network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues” with six commentators as its “talent.” Tenet Media uses the same phrase in the description on its website, and other details in the indictment align with the firm. 

Its website lists right-wing personalities like Dave Rubin, who has over 2.4 million YouTube subscribers and Tim Pool, a podcast host with more than 1.3 million YouTube followers.

On Thursday evening, a YouTube spokesperson said that “after careful review,” it was “terminating the Tenet Media channel and four channels operated by its owner, Lauren Chen, as part of our ongoing efforts to combat coordinated influence operations.”

YouTube said the investigation into the situation was ongoing.

Records with the Tennessee Secretary of State’s Office show that Tenet Media incorporated on January 19, 2022, the same incorporation date mentioned in the indictment, and is headquartered in Nashville. 

It was founded by Chen and her husband, Liam Donovan. 

In the indictment, Donovan and Chen were called Founder-1 and Founder-2, and prosecutors said they ran the company together.

The indictment asserts that Tenet never revealed that it was “funded and directed” by RT and that the company and its founders failed to register with the Justice Department as agents of a foreign principal.

It declared that the RT employees and Tenet’s founders “deceived” two U.S. internet commentators and hired them to produce videos for the company, hiding the source of funding from RT. 

Pool is one of the commentators, but it is unclear if the second is Rubin.

The founders alleged that Tenet was sponsored by a private investor named “Eduard Grigoriann,” a fake person. They also created a fake profile for him.

Prosecutors said one of the founders began soliciting two commentators for work on behalf of “Grigoriann” around February 2023. 

One commentator, called “Commentator-1,” said he needed $5 million yearly “for him to be interested” in creating videos for the fake person. The other, known as “Commentator-2,” needed $100,000 per weekly episode “to make it worth his while,” according to the indictment.

The two commentators ultimately entered into contracts, prosecutors noted. 

The contract for Commentator-1 required four weekly videos, which he would host and which Tenet Media would live-stream in exchange for $400,000 per month and a $100,000 signing bonus. 

The Russian disinformation campaign in the U.S. is nothing new. 

In August 2022, the hacker collective Anonymous acquired hundreds of thousands of emails from a massive Russian media company believed to be heavily involved in creating and distributing Kremlin propaganda throughout the U.S. 

In May, Russian state media began airing conservative commentator Tucker Carlson’s show regularly on Russia’s state-run television channel, Rossiya 24, even though Carlson claimed he is not involved.