Being A Useful Idiot Pays Well (Allegedly)
Where's my $400,000 a month contract?
Late in the day yesterday, the Department of Justice unsealed an indictment alleging that two Russian employees of RT, the Russian state-owned media outlet, secretly oversaw the creation and distribution of pro-Russian content to U.S. audiences. The indictments are part of a larger operation, dubbed “Doppelganger” that focuses on disrupting Russian-directed foreign malign influence campaigns. From NPR’s coverage:
RT worked with an online content creation company in Tennessee, which was directed to contract with U.S. social media influencers to distribute its content on social media platforms including, TikTok, X, Instagram and YouTube. Since November, the company posted more than 2,000 videos that received more than 16 million views on YouTube, according to the indictment.
The link to Russia was never disclosed, the DOJ said.
The two RT employees, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, 31, and Elena Afanasyeva, 27, have been charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
“The American people are entitled to know when a foreign power is attempting to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to send around its own propaganda,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said Wednesday. [source]
To be clear, the alleged crime isn’t the production of the content. The crime is the steps taken to hide RT’s role in sponsoring and influencing the creation of the content–not only from the public but from the content creators themselves. This scheme included inventing a wealthy European banker named Eduard Grigoriann to serve as the primary funding source for Tenent Media.
Currently, no Americans (or Canadians) have been charged with crimes related to this case. That said, the DoJ has not revealed whether any State-side actors are assisting with the investigation.
In a separate article, the NPR team dives into the set-up of this propaganda operation:
The RT staffers, named in the indictment as Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, have been charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act. They’re accused of funneling nearly $10 million to an unnamed Tennessee company that contracted with online influencers with big audiences.
“The company never disclosed to the influencers or to their millions of followers its ties to RT and the Russian government,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Wednesday.
Details in the indictment match Nashville-based Tenet Media, including its website description: “a network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues.”
Tenet was founded in 2022 by Lauren Chen, a conservative Canadian YouTuber, and her husband, Liam Donovan, whose X profile describes him as president of Tenet Media. Chen hosts a show on Glenn Beck’s BlazeTV and is a contributor to right-wing activist group Turning Point USA. She wrote opinion pieces for RT in 2021 and 2022.
According to the indictment, the Tennessee company’s founders worked with Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva — whom they knew were Russian — to recruit influencers to make videos that were published across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and X. The indictment says its nearly 2,000 YouTube videos amassed more than 16 million views, which tracks with public statistics on Tenet Media’s YouTube channel.
Chen and Donovan didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Again, the DoJ has repeatedly stated that the content creators this firm hired, which included Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, David Rubin, and Lauren Southern, do not appear to have known they were essentially working for RT. What I think is especially noteworthy about this operation is how it represents an evolution from previous bot and sockpuppet campaigns focused on influencing western opinion on Russian interests. Again from NPR:
What sets the RT operation apart from many other interference efforts is that it appeared to reach a real audience, thanks to the recognizable names attached.
“Buying authentic influencers is a far better use of funds than creating fake personas, because they bring their own trusting audiences and are actually, you know, real,” wrote Renée DiResta, the author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality, about how online influencers spread propaganda and rumors, in a post on Threads.
By the time Tenet Media launched in November of 2023, all of those hosts had already been producing content that was, at a minimum, friendly to Russia and, more importantly, Russian President Vladimir Putin. So to some degree, the RT operatives recognized that these people (who already had a receptive audience built in) would be creating some of this content anyway. They then took the extra steps of (1) incentivizing it’s production and (2) “suggesting” approaches to covering the content.
The Tennessee company offered lucrative terms, according to the indictment. One influencer was paid $400,000 a month, a $100,000 signing bonus, and an additional performance bonus in exchange for four videos a week.
Afanasyeva allegedly exerted a lot of control over the Tennessee company’s operations and what it put out, including pushing for specific angles that echoed Kremlin narratives.
For example, the indictment said Afanasyeva told the company to blame Ukraine for a March 2024 terrorist attack on a Moscow concert hall, even though ISIS had claimed responsibility. The company’s founder said one of the contributors was “happy to cover it.”
This is pretty much the definition of a “useful idiot.” What is surprising is how well-compensated said idiots were (especially considering they would be already making some of that content anyway). And while all of said useful idiots have denied knowing anything about the RT involvement, one has to wonder–given that level of high compensation–how many questions they were willing to ask about who was funding Tenet Media (or even how the organization would be profitable paying people that much).
Granted, there’s the adage that one shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds them. At the same time, there’s also the other adage that there is no such thing as a free lunch (or, in this case, we’ll pay you $400,000/month to eat lunch).
One would hope that, if these revelations prove to be true, those content creators might reconsider their “Putin isn’t such a bad guy” and “Ukraine is really responsible for the war” stances. Likewise, folks in their audiences hopefully feel a bit misled or used. This includes one of their biggest fans, Elon Musk, who has spent a lot of his time as the owner of Twitter endorsing the content RT was paying them to create.
One humorous thing that emerged from the indictment–apparently even the folks at Tenet Media had their limits:
Afanasyeva also allegedly requested the company post a video of “a well-known U.S. political commentator visiting a grocery store in Russia” — likely a reference to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who traveled to Moscow in February. According to the indictment, a producer at the company told one of the founders “it just feels like overt shilling,” but was told to “put it out there.”
I’m sure this will shock our visitors from the Drudge Report yesterday, who thought it was scandalous that I suggest that Tucker Carlson produces material that is pro-authoritarian and fascist governments. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to reexamine this content with a more critical eye.
Update: Lauren Chen has been fired by Blaze Media:
It also appears that Turning Point USA has purged information about her from their website:
Note to my handlers from the Soros Foundation: OK, I’ve posted attacks on Tucker Carlson and the alt-right like you requested (though those communications you send me via my mashed potatoes). So when are the checks going to start? And how do I get the $400,000/month deal? Heck, I’ll take $4 a month and won’t ask any questions.
Fun with Tim Pool.
https://x.com/TimPoolClips/status/1325191294734331906
“Being A Useful Idiot Pays Well (Allegedly)”
“So when are the checks going to start? And how do I get the $400,000/month deal?”
I suspect it’s because you don’t meet the requirements for the job (likely not the idiot part).
If people actually learned a little history they would realize we are reliving the 1930s in so many ways. From the rise of far right authoritarian regimes to Russian propagandists, both “useful idiots” and actual “fellow travelers”. Only with better technology. In this country and the other liberal democracies, it could be argued that the only thing that stopped the authoritarian march was WWII, which reset the world political order for the last 90 years.
@Scott:
After the 2020 election, when it became apparent that the Felon wasn’t going to go away, I picked up a copy of Hannah Arendt’s, “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” scary how the events of the last decade track Arendt’s analysis.
Maybe Mad Vlad doesn’t pay El Weirdo because the latter is not a useful idiot. Rather just a useless idiot he can use.
The term “useful idiots” is far too kind as it implies naivety as to the ultimate impact of one’s actions. There is a lack of intentionality.
Willingly siding with authoritarian regimes and causes is not that.
I am a married guy with 2 kids.. do I need to live in a compound / studio / skate park yet for some reason wear an unwashed beanie to get that $400k monthly contract? Fun is seeing clips of Mr. Pool, Esq. yell his weird explanation of why Ukraine is obviously an enemy of the US.
Also unlike our favorite conservative influencers / spousal abusers, I have the temerity to actually like my wife, so the ceiling for that contract is probably lower than the other options who can be cross-promoted from such cultured sources as More Plates More Dates.
Is the entire RW manosphere a Russian op? I can’t say they’re not!
My DM’s are open, Elena!
All that money was just a gratuity, don’t you know? A thank-you for being so awesome! And I took all those trips on private jets because they were my friends! There’s nothing to see here at all!
I worked for a big PR firm for a while. They had an extremely rigorous vetting process for new clients, and there were some industries (gambling was one) that they just did not do work for at all. A key “tell” is if the money being offered is outsized to the work product requested–it’s a big red flag that they either want you to do something unethical, or they are so unethical they can’t find people to do the work for them.
Which is a long way of saying: anyone offering $400K/mo. this work is, or should have been, immediately suspect.
@Jen:
And anyone taking such an offer is without ethics, morals, and/or shame.
@Moosebreath:
I suppose it could be the ‘useful’ part.
Does Putin pay more than Soros?
A quick check of Benny Johnson shows him social-post-on-x-ing stuff about Soros funded antisemitic protests on college campuses. I expect Tim Pool has something similar.
I think this helps answer the question of why they think George Soros is funding lefty protests and influencers.
Being the cynical that I am, I still lean the direction that there’s no particular reason for Putin fellow travelers to reconsider their stands. The whatever happened to Lauren Chan on TP-dot-com and Pool on X is just as likely to be the reaction of people “just asking questions, no agenda at all” having been caught agendizing in ways they would prefer not to have been caught agendizing,
Dammit, where’s my sorosbucks?
Can Keir Starmer please set up a British Information Services fund?
I sincerely promise never again to mock his wooden delivery.
(Well, not much. Or often. 🙂 )
My rates are reasonable, and open to negotiation.
MAGA doesn’t care. Even those MAGA that are curious will assume it’s a hoax.
There is a broad media complex that’s purely dedicated to ensure that MAGA keep f&cking those chickens.
@Michael Reynolds:
Well played and sadly true.
@Gustopher:
It’s always EAIAC time in conservativeland. They think and say that because they know they’re not popular but can’t conceive of the reality that left-wingers actually believe what they say. They simply assume left-wingers are fake because all RW channels are fake purchased propaganda but RW’ers get to act like they’re In On The Joke. They also ignore the fact that 100% of the top 30 richest people in the US are actively funding conservative idiocy while Soros is like 73rd but he’s the top op for Lefties.
This is why the bag available for regurgitating RW blather has hundreds of K per week available but lefties like David Doel [Rational National] have to work for 10 years to upgrade the set with a fake Home Depot plastic tree.