Day: September 16, 2024

A Justice Department (DOJ) indictment revealing Russia’s use of conservative influencers to peddle its viewpoints has shined a light on its newest tactics for tapping into existing right-leaning media to push its agenda.

An indictment unsealed by the department last week shows two employees of RT, formerly known as Russia Today, contracted with conservative Tenet Media to offer lucrative contracts to its band of influencers, including Tim Pool, Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson.

Those influencers have mirrored the DOJ’s language, calling themselves unwitting participants in the scheme and in some cases victims of the operation.

The State Department on Friday indicated RT’s efforts were even broader than those revealed by the DOJ, noting the outlet similarly hired a French influencer to push its viewpoints there.

But the episode shows how the conservative media landscape is ripe for being co-opted by Russia, raising questions about the extent to which the U.S. adversary has sought to steer existing media.

Laura Thornton, senior director of global democracy programs at the McCain Institute, said the plot marked the first time the “DOJ has exposed these direct linkages.”

“We’ve seen Russian state media amplify existing narratives and use their bot farms or other sites to spread that information. But in terms of directly paying for an American media company to produce content on their behalf, this is quite unusual,” she told The Hill.

“Given that a lot of the false information and pro-Russia narratives actually come from within, it’s much easier to just throw a flame on those tinders,” she added. “The influencers themselves are claiming that they didn’t really change their content, which to me is almost even more alarming. They’re not being paid to change things because they already are [broadcasting] pro-Kremlin, pro-Russian disinformation narratives.”

The DOJ didn’t identify the players involved, but details in the indictment make clear some identities, including that of Tenet Media, which like the company listed in the filing describes itself as a “network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues.”

Its owners, Lauren Chen and her husband Liam Donovan, took in some $10 million in contracts from sources they referred to in internal communications as “the Russians.” 

The two relayed the name of a fake investor, Eduard Grigoriann, to influencers who were paid handsomely for a series of videos that were in fact funded by the Russian government through two employees of RT.

One of those employees, Elena Afanasyeva, later “edited, posted, and directed the posting … of hundreds of videos” at Tenet.

Some of the content reviewed in the indictment promoted key Russian talking points, including a video of former Fox News host Tucker Carlson visiting a Russian grocery store. Though one producer at Tenet initially raised concerns that it “just feels like overt shilling,” they acquiesced and shared the content the next day.

In another case, Afanasyeva wanted to promote the “Ukraine/U.S. angle” in the wake of a terror attack in Moscow, despite reports indicating ISIS had claimed responsibility for the attack. Nevertheless, one of the influencers said “he’s happy to cover it.”

Many of the influencers involved in the plot say they were unaware of the Russian involvement and never shifted their content. 

“Never at any point did anyone other than I have full editorial control of the show and the contents of the show are often apolitical,” Pool said in a statement on social platform X shortly after the indictment was unsealed.  

Pool and Johnson referred to themselves as victims of the plot.

“The FBI has notified me that I am the victim of a crime. [Attorney General] Merrick Garland said the same in his press conference. I am the only person who ever had editorial control of my program. Period,” Johnson said on X.

In another statement, he said he had been involved in a “standard, arms length deal, which was later terminated.”

But they’ve faced criticism for not being more skeptical of the high-dollar contracts they were offered, as well as questions about why their messaging was appealing to a U.S. adversary in the first place.

“They’re also claiming, of course, that they were themselves deceived, in which case, I guess the question really is, they should ask themselves why they were chosen — why their messaging is in such lockstep with Russian disinformation in the first place,” Thornton said.

“Why do we have this constituency in our country? And that, to me, is more concerning and makes life a lot easier for the Russians, because then they can just retweet what our own congressperson is saying or our own media.”

Ben Dubow, a fellow with the Center for European Policy Analysis who studies disinformation efforts, said the large existing followings are a major part of the appeal for Russia. Johnson and Rubin have about 2.5 million followers on YouTube, while Pool has 1.4 million.

“I would not be shocked if there were other incidents of this. What attracts Russia to influencers like this is kind of the isolationism, which is very directly related to Russian interest. The other is just promoting cleavages within American society. And there are a lot of people on social media who make their living essentially doing exactly that,” he said.

But others see a severe lack of due diligence on the part of influencers who were receiving significant sums to make the content. One of the influencers was paid $400,000 a month while another was given $100,000 per video.

They were given a false profile of Grigoriann after asking about the source of financing, though the indictment notes there were little results on Google for anyone by that name and none associated with the bank he claimed to work with.

“I would love to be a victim of a crime where I get paid $400,000,” quipped A.J. Bauer, a professor at the University of Alabama who studies right-wing media.

“Even if they were unaware that Russia was the one providing the funds, if somebody’s giving you $100,000 per podcast episode, that should raise some questions, right? Who’s bankrolling this?”

He described the conservative media landscape as a highly entrepreneurial space that has long been funded by wealthy Americans seeking to influence public opinion — a legal activity when pushed by U.S. citizens.

He said there will likely be a lasting impact for the influencers.

“Among right wing folks there has been an increasing sympathy with Russia, but I still think that a lot of conservatives and right wingers don’t necessarily want to follow somebody who is overtly engaging in propaganda or who would be willing to, and so I think that’s probably going to damage their reputations mid-term,” he said.

“I would imagine that they can kind of rebrand themselves [in the long term]. They’ve done so multiple times already.”

The consequences have been most severe for Chen and Donovan, who have gone silent since the indictment dropped. The indictment notes that neither ever registered as a foreign agent, raising the specter that additional charges could be coming.

YouTube took down content from Chen and Tenet Media while Glenn Beck’s Blaze Media said it had terminated a contract it had with Chen. The YouTube channels for Pool, Johnson and Rubin were not impacted.

Tenet Media declined to respond to a request for comment. 

Russia has been ramping up its use of RT, which the State Department accused Friday of having ties to Russian intelligence. 

“We know that for over two years, RT has leveraged its extensive state funding to covertly recruit and pay social media personalities and provide them with unbranded content to disseminate and promote around the world while hiding RT’s involvement,” the State Department wrote.

It’s not clear, however, just how wide an audience the Russian-backed content reached. 

The indictment says the company posted about 2,000 videos since launching, generating about 16 million views. 

But Dubow said that’s not as much of a splash as one might think. He said advertisers expect to spend $10-$15 per every thousand views while content creators often get about $1 for every thousand impressions they generate. By either metric, Russia was spending orders of magnitude more than market rates to reach a relatively small audience. 

“It really does look like the influencers got the best of this deal, as opposed to Russia really achieving all that much with it,” he said.

But Thornton stressed that $10 million is a drop in the bucket for Russia, which has advanced its influence operations since 2016 and also faces its own internal unrest as it engages in war with Ukraine.

“Russia has never had more of an incentive to interfere with our elections than it does today,” she said.

“They are facing an existential threat, right? And the war in Ukraine and how it turns out for Russia is their entire future. And a lot of it is going to depend on who the next president of the United States is. So if ever they’ve had an incentive to get involved in our politics, I would say this is the year.”

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Russian state media have cited Larry C. Johnson in hundreds of news articles and TV reports. They frequently present his views on the Russian-Ukrainian war and the West’s role, referring to him as a former CIA analyst, despite his short tenure with the agency more than 35 years ago. The Kremlin uses Johnson’s often false and misleading claims to promote pro-Russian narratives and improve its image.

RIA Novosti

RIA Novosti is a Russia’s major domestic state news agency with a website audience of upwards of 10 million daily users. From August 1, 2023, to September 12, 2024, Ria.ru published 403 materials citing Johnson’s statements.

On August 8, 2023, RIA Novosti — citing Johnson’s interview with YouTube channel Redacted — reported that “U.S. intelligence agencies are planning to assassinate Zelenskyy.”

Thirteen months later, the Ukrainian president is alive and well and regularly travels to the front to personally award troops of the nation’s armed forces.

On April 22, 2024, RIA Novosti, quoting Johnson’s interview with the YouTube channel Dialogue Works, stated that by “end of summer, maybe sooner,” Ukraine will lose the war to Russia and the Ukrainian city of Odesa, which he called Russian, will come under Moscow’s control.

In reality, Ukraine not only didn’t surrender but also launched a successful counteroffensive, capturing nearly 1,300 square kilometers of Russia’s Kursk region.

As for Odesa allegedly being a Russian city, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a similar false statement on December 15, 2023. Voice of America debunked Putin’s claim.

Odesa was founded in the 14th century as the Tatar fortress Khadzhibey and passed through Lithuanian, Polish and Turkish control before Russia took it by force in 1792. Russia renamed it Odesa in 1795 and ruled it for 126 years.

For the past 105 years, Odesa has been part of Ukraine. Contrary to Russian imperial myths, the city was never predominantly Russian; by 2001, Ukrainians were the majority, and as of 2015, 68% of residents were ethnic Ukrainians.

Sputnik

Sputnik is another Russian state-run news agency, and since August 8, 2023, it has published 280 materials with quotes from Johnson.

On March 31, Sputnik, citing Johnson’s interview on the YouTube channel Judge Napolitano – Judging Freedom, claimed that the March 22, 2024, terrorist attack at Crocus Concert Hall in Moscow was allegedly organized by Ukraine through an intermediary, with the U.S. and Great Britain as the masterminds behind the entire “operation.”

This false statement by Johnson coincides with the Kremlin’s information campaign blaming Ukraine and the West for this terrorist attack.

Russia ignored the Islamic State’s claim of responsibility for the attack, which included evidence such as video footage of the terrorists in action. Instead, the Kremlin intensified its propaganda efforts following the IS claim.

Other major Russian media outlets

The state-owned broadcaster Russia Today, or RT, has published 163 articles with Johnson quotes and videos.

On August 29, 2023, RT, citing Johnson, reported a pro-Kremlin hoax that “Zelensky very well could be ousted in a coup within the next three to four weeks because of the great disgruntlement among troops on the eastern front.”

Pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia published 359 articles citing Johnson.

On August 8, 2023, Izvestia reported that, according to Johnson, Ukrainian air defenses had been almost completely destroyed, “so that Russian aircraft can now fly unhindered or almost unhindered throughout the territory of Ukraine.”

In fact, in August 2023, Russian aircraft were avoiding entering Ukrainian airspace to stay out of range of Ukraine’s air defense systems.

The Russian government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta had 299 news items with Larry C. Johnson’s name.

On June 16, 2024, Rossiyskaya Gazeta published Johnson’s unsubstantiated prediction, aligned with Kremlin narratives, stating: “If the West rejects Moscow’s peace plan, the Kyiv regime could soon lose control not only of Odesa but also of the capital.”

Lenta.ru, a mainstream news site owned by the Russian government through a subsidiary of the Sberbank state bank, published 445 articles containing statements by the “former CIA analyst.”

In January 2024, Johnson gave an interview to Channel One, a Russian state-owned TV channel, in which he promoted narratives indistinguishable from Kremlin propaganda: Ukraine has no chance in a war with Russia, Ukraine’s air force and air defenses are destroyed, Russia is an industrial giant, and the West cannot compete with it.