Prominent right-wing influencers Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson and Tim Pool have huge followings on YouTube and are fond of the Trumpist talking point that allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election on behalf of the former president are a “hoax.” That’s not all they have in common: They also allegedly made lucrative deals with a content creation company that was a front for Russian propagandists.
The Justice Department on Wednesday charged two employees of the Russian propaganda outlet RT, accusing them of laundering nearly $10 million through foreign shell companies and violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The Justice Department alleges this was done “to covertly finance and operate a media company” that produced videos whose content and subject matter were “often consistent with the Russian government's interest in exacerbating domestic divisions in the United States to weaken U.S. opposition to the Russian government's core interests.”
The company’s description matches that of Tenet Media, a Tennessee-based company co-founded by Lauren Chen, a creator of Glenn Beck’s Blaze TV (which Chen fired on Thursday) and a contributor to Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA. Tenet Media publishes content from Rubin, Johnson, Pool and other less prominent influencers. According to the indictment, the production companies received $8.7 million in the scheme from three anonymous commentators.
The indictment alleges that two of the commentators were misled about the source of the funding; the trio all described themselves as unwitting “victims” of the operation in separate statements on social media. But the Tenet Media saga demonstrates once again that Russian election interference is not a “hoax,” as these commentators and their allies have insisted. It is a fact, a deliberate and ongoing operation by the Kremlin to influence American politics. And the Trump right’s years-long quest to debunk that reality has ultimately saturated its entire information ecosystem with Russian propaganda.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 final report compellingly documented the Russian government’s systematic effort to influence the 2016 presidential election to help Trump and the multiple ways in which Trump’s associates participated in that endeavor. This was an unwelcome finding for Trump and his political and media allies, who had spent years concocting an elaborate alternate reality in which claims about Russian election interference or corrupt ties between Russia and Trump and his associates were “deep state” lies. They responded by falsely claiming that Mueller’s report had found “no collusion” between Trump and Russia, and used that lie to brand the entire investigation a “hoax.”
That inability to openly reject Russian efforts to support their party's standard-bearer led to Russian propaganda efforts being massively channeled into right-wing media.
No one on the right has done more to promote pro-Russian talking points than former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a longtime defender of Russian President Vladimir Putin and opponent of U.S. aid to Ukraine. Russian propaganda outlets attempted to drum up Western support for the 2022 invasion by highlighting Carlson’s nightly tirades against U.S. aid to Ukraine, and in turn served as a source for Carlson’s show. One Russian state TV host even suggested on the radio that Carlson take a job at his network after Fox dropped him the following year.
Carlson didn't go quite that far — but he did make a trip to Moscow the following year for a mostly friendly interview with Putin. Carlson's visit was met with rave reviews from Russian propaganda outlets; the host in turn produced a pathetic video claiming that his visit to a local grocery store was “the[d]” him to American political leaders. (Carlson’s video about the Moscow market was so unsubtle that when one of the accused RT employees suggested posting it on Tenet’s Instagram channel, a Tenet producer initially pushed back, fearing the video “felt like overt advertising.”)
But Russia-friendly narratives about the country’s invasion of Ukraine eventually spread far beyond Carlson. It became accepted orthodoxy on the MAGA right that sending military aid to Ukraine is a waste of money, that the United States is to blame for the Russian invasion, and that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the real villain in the conflict. As Pool put it, “Ukraine is the enemy of this country!” All of which brings Putin closer to one of his primary goals: ending U.S. aid to Ukraine.
Russian interests and Kremlin-connected sources also fueled the right’s obsession with Hunter Biden’s business interests and the absurd allegation that Joe Biden accepted bribes from a Ukrainian oligarch. Both cases were treated as major news by right-wing media and politicians, while House Republicans made them the centerpiece of their impeachment efforts against the president.
While the American right has been peddling Russian talking points for years, it seems that commentators unknowingly receiving payments from that country is a new development. But the revelation that some of them have been caught up in a Russian intelligence operation has not prompted any introspection from the MAGA right. There is a distinct lack of concern over the idea that Russian propagandists want to encourage the divisive rhetoric prevalent on the pro-Trump right because they believe it weakens the United States and strengthens Russian interests.
Instead, as they did with the revelations about Russian interference in 2016 and the lifting of their impeachment proceedings earlier this year, they have jumped straight to complaints and conspiracy theories.
In the hours after the indictment was filed Wednesday, Fox hosts and chyrons alleged that the Justice Department was engaging in “dirty tricks” intended to help Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 campaign, and potentially “laying the groundwork for more censorship.” Other right-wing commentators suggested that the indictment could be “a psyop within a psyop or perhaps tied to” Trump’s statement[ing] He's going to declassify Epstein's client list.”
For Charlie Kirk, Trump's closest associate and streamer who had Tenet Media co-founder Lauren Chen as a TPUSA employee, the key lesson was that “the regime is ramping up its fear campaign before November.”
All of this ensures that the right-wing information space remains a fertile breeding ground for Russian propaganda as Moscow tries to get Trump back into the White House.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
