The personalities weren’t directly named or accused of wrongdoing by the Justice Department, but court documents unsealed Wednesday revealed Russian state media producers funneled nearly $10 million to an unnamed Tennessee-based online media company. The company, identified by CNN as Tenet Media, boasts a slate of high-profile right-wing commentators as “talent,” including Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, Lauren Southern, Tayler Hansen, Matt Christiansen and Dave Rubin, collectively boasting millions of followers across social media platforms.
Two Russian state media employees were charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act and money laundering.
The secret payments pull back the curtain on some of the most popular right-wing personalities, who were paid millions of dollars by the Kremlin, without their knowledge according to the Justice Department to promote conservative narratives that furthered Russian interests. And while the influencer, podcaster, and online content creator space is booming, the indictment shows how open the new media ecosystem is to infiltration, where independent creators operate with few guardrails and little transparency.
What is Tenet Media?
Tenet Media launched last year, describing itself as “a network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues” with six commentators, all of whom had established online presences in the conservative media ecosystem.
Some of Tenet’s commentators had careers at more mainstream media outlets prior to striking out on their own: Tim Pool was a reporter at Vice Media and Benny Johnson was a writer at BuzzFeed and the Independent Journal Review (Johnson was let go from both outlets) before becoming MAGA influencers.
Rubin, once known as a libertarian who worked at the progressive network The Young Turks before making a right turn into conservative media, hosts his show “The Rubin Report” on Glenn Beck’s The Blaze and YouTube. Others, like Lauren Southern, have made their name in the online alt-right, White nationalism spaces (Southern has previously denied being a White nationalist).
The commentators assembled by Tenet boasted more than 6 million YouTube subscribers, but their influence has extended well beyond the Google-owned video platform. Pool, known for donning a black beanie on his broadcasts, has used his show to host far-right extremists, including Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and Jack Posobiec. Earlier this year, Pool interviewed former President Donald Trump on his podcast.
Johnson, who boasts nearly 2.4 million subscribers on YouTube and is a former chief creative officer of the right-wing activist group Turning Point USA, interviewed Donald Trump Jr. on the Tenet platform in February.
The influencers’ deals with Tenet varied, with the outlet exclusively hosting some of their shows while also cross posting the creators’ other content. According to the indictment, one of the unnamed social media stars was paid $400,000 per month to create videos for the platform, with another unnamed influencer also receiving a $100,000 signing bonus.
Christiansen said during a live stream Wednesday that he was approached last June by Tenet Media co-founders Lauren Chen and her husband, Liam Donovan to join the network, claiming that they could help him get more “eyes” on his content. Neither Chen or Donovan are named in the indictment.
Chen, a right-wing media personality who hosted a show for Glenn Beck’s “The Blaze” and contributed to Turning Point USA, had amassed more than 572,000 subscribers on her YouTube account before it was taken down Thursday. Blaze Media fired Chen the day after the indictment was unsealed by the Justice Department.
Representatives for Tenet did not return a request for comment.