Influential US conservatives say they are ‘victims’ of Russian disinformation campaign | 2024 US election

A number of high-profile conservative US influencers have declared themselves “victims” of an alleged Russian disinformation campaign after the Biden administration accused Moscow of waging a sustained campaign to influence the outcome of November’s presidential election.

Tim Pool, Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson issued statements late Wednesday addressing allegations that an American content creation company they were associated with received nearly $10 million from Russian state media employees to publish videos with messages in favor of Moscow’s interests and agenda. including for the war in Ukraine.

The Justice Department indictment does not name the company, but describes it as a content creation firm in Tennessee with six commentators and a website that identifies itself as “a network of heterodox commentators focusing on Western political and cultural issues.” .

That description exactly fits Tenet Media, an online company that hosts videos by well-known conservative influencers Tim Pool, Benny Johnson and others.

The Guardian has contacted Tenet for comment. The company did not release a statement or comment on the allegations, nor did it respond to requests for comment from other media organizations, including the New York Times and CBS, according to their reports.

Tenet Media’s shows in recent months have featured high-profile conservative guests, including Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law and RNC co-chair Lara Trump, former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Republican US Senate candidate Kari Lake.

“The company never disclosed to influencers — or their millions of followers — its ties to (Russian state media company) RT and the Russian government,” said US Attorney General Merrick Garland. His department described Wednesday’s indictment as the biggest effort yet to push back against what it says are attempts by Russia to spread disinformation ahead of November’s presidential election.

The Tennessee company posted English-language videos on multiple social media channels, including TikTok, Instagram, X and YouTube, according to the indictment.

Pool, a popular podcaster with more than 2 million followers on X, said that “if these allegations prove to be true, I, along with the other personalities and commentators, were defrauded and are victims.”

“No one but me has ever had full editorial control over the show, and the show’s content is often apolitical.”

Johnson, who has 2.7 million followers on X, said he was “disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment, which make it clear that I and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme.”

Rubin told X that he “knew absolutely nothing about this fraudulent activity” and that the allegations showed “that I and other commenters were victims of this scheme.”

The Justice Department is accusing two employees of RT, a Russian state media company, of secretly funding the Tennessee-based content company to publish pro-Russian videos. The Justice Department says the company failed to disclose that it was funded by RT and that neither it nor its founders registered, as required by law, as an agent of a foreign principal.

RT ceased operations in the US after major television distributors dropped it in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. RT scoffed at requests for comment from the Reuters news agency: “Three things are certain in life: death, taxes and RT meddling in US elections.”

Garland said, “The Justice Department’s message is clear: We will have zero tolerance for attempts by authoritarian regimes to exploit our democratic systems of government.”

The nearly 2,000 videos posted by the company have received more than 16 million views on YouTube alone, prosecutors said. The company paid $8.7 million to the production companies of three of the online stars it recruited, according to the indictment.

The commentators, who were not named in the indictment, did not know they were being paid by RT, the Justice Department said.

In one case, the indictment says, one of RT’s employees asked the company to produce a video that would blame Ukraine and the United States for a mass shooting at a Moscow music venue, the Justice Department said, even though the State Islamic claimed responsibility. . A company founder responded that one of the commenters was “happy to cover it,” according to the indictment.

As part of the indictment, the Biden administration seized Kremlin-run websites and indicted two Russian state media employees in its biggest effort yet to push back against what it says are Russian attempts to spread disinformation before the presidential election in November.

The Treasury Department also fined RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan and nine other network employees over the disinformation campaign surrounding the election. Simonyan is a “central figure in the Russian government’s malign influence efforts,” the department said.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report