How Did Evil Russians Manage To Fool Dave Rubin, Tim Pool, AND Benny Johnson? Wow!
It was fun and easy!
It might take you a while to get through the Justice Department’s indictment of two Russian nationals for using American right-wing influencers and opinionblabbers to covertly spread propaganda, because you’ll want to take time to really absorb and mock and laugh at each and every allegation.
Because c’mon, Tim Pool and Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson being directed by a bunch of Russian operatives and fake coworkers, who are being paid by RT to use those dipshits to manipulate American public opinion? And those guys are the useful idiots, because, well, they’re goddamned fuckin’ idiots?
It’s the funniest Russian election interference we’ve ever seen, and we still have two months to go before November 5.
Here’s how the press release from the Department of Justice starts, it is not very funny:
An indictment charging Russian nationals Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, 31, also known as Kostya, and Elena Afanasyeva, 27, also known as Lena, with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and conspiracy to commit money laundering was unsealed today in the Southern District of New York. Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva are at large.
“The Justice Department has charged two employees of RT, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, in a $10 million scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts, and our investigation into this matter remains ongoing.”
You know how indictments are — “Person 1” was a boner tickler for “Company 2,” blah blah blah — but we’ll fill in the blanks and try to construct the narrative for you, based on what folks have been able to figure out.
First, though, we need you to watch the late Norm MacDonald’s famous moth joke, so it’s fresh on your mind.
The reason for that will become clear in a moment.
The Basic Narrative!
Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, 31, AKA Kostya, and Elena Afanasyeva, 27, AKA Lena, work for RT, and they were involved in RT’s efforts to create secret cutouts to spread Kremlin propaganda in the United States. This was necessary because RT was sanctioned to fuck and forced to shut down official operations in the US and much of the West after Vladimir Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine and started beheading and raping babies to satisfy Putin’s delusions and bloodlust.
Also, RT did this because that’s just what real news operations that aren’t just intelligence ops do when they’re forced to shut down. Totally normal.
The FBI says Kostya is the manager of several of these cutouts in the US, which suggests the FBI knows about a fuckton more it hasn’t told us yet.
The indictment alleges that Kostya and Lena recruited two founders for a new media company formed in Nashville. (Of course! Because right-wing white fascists are absolutely obsessed with the fantasy that Nashville is their new Hollywood For Hitlers.)
That company has been identified by internet sleuths as Tenet Media, and the founders have been identified as a married couple named Lauren Chen and Liam Donovan. She’s a YouTuber who’s been affiliated with Turning Point USA and Glenn Beck’s Blaze TV, because of course. (Just after we posted this, news broke that Blaze had fired Chen.)
Thing is, according to the indictment, Chen and Donovan have worked for RT before in a direct capacity, and appear to have a pattern of trying to conceal that they’re working for RT, because of how it’s a bad look.
The indictment provides this example:
![For example, in a July 2021 email inviting a contact to apply for a job with RT, Founder-1 wrote that "RT's budget is gonna be larger" but acknowledged, "I know being Russian some folks in the US aren't too hot on them lol." As another example, in a private exchange on the messaging platform Discord in February 2022, Producer-1 told Founder-2 that "when I was asking people if they wanted to interview, many said yes until I said I was with RT so I switched to saying I was just working for [F ounder-1]." Founder-2 replied: "Ha, not surprised."](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!g2Ex!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4bac3dd0-7fd6-4781-b8cc-f4c484d0f6c5_1534x504.png "For example, in a July 2021 email inviting a contact to apply for a job with RT, Founder-1 wrote that \"RT's budget is gonna be larger\" but acknowledged, \"I know being Russian some folks in the US aren't too hot on them lol.\" As another example, in a private exchange on the messaging platform Discord in February 2022, Producer-1 told Founder-2 that \"when I was asking people if they wanted to interview, many said yes until I said I was with RT so I switched to saying I was just working for [F ounder-1].\" Founder-2 replied: \"Ha, not surprised.\"")
The indictment notes that the founders tended to refer to RT as “the Russians,” a habit they kept up in the scheme for which these two Russian RT employees Lena and Kostya are indicted for.
Anyway! So the Russians are accused of laundering $9.7 million to Tenet, which was 90 percent of all the money the company received during the time in question. (That’s right, 90 PERCENT of the money for this hot new upstart right-wing media company came from Russian shell companies. Oh, did you think they were funded by the grassroots?) Out of that, $8.7 million went to three commentators, video talent Chen and Donovan recruited. For example:
As much as $400,000 per month went to “Commentator 1,” who appears to be dumb gay conservative Dave Rubin. To make like four videos per week!
$100,000 per video for “Commentator 2,” who appears to be Tim Pool.
Russia, if you’re listening! We could learn to make videos! Allegedly!
The other commentators in the indictment have been identified as Lauren Southern (“Commentator 4”) and Matt Christiansen (“Commentator 6”). Media reporter Will Sommer says numbers three and five are unclear, but the two remaining personalities on the Tenet Media website are Benny Johnson and Taylor Hansen.
Like so:
LMAO.
Now to be clear, the indictment specifically says the founders did not disclose to the talent that they were working for RT or the Russians. This is easy to believe, because the talent in question are morons. We cannot imagine it would be too difficult to fool, uhhhhh, Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin, and Tim Pool.
Indeed, at various times in the indictment, you see the founders — who did not register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) — apparently working together to deceive Rubin and Pool. They told them that the sugar daddy for their operation was a completely fictitious man with no presence on the internet (on account of imaginary) named
EDUARD GRIGORIANN!
Who definitely sounds like one of the characters in Norm MacDonald’s moth joke, and if that was the inspiration, then fair fucking play to the Russians.
So uh, yeah, EDUARD GRIGORIANN!
Rubin was skeptical and wanted proof his new sugar daddy was who they said he was, so at one point they gave him this profile of EDUARD GRIGORIANN! and he was like OK sure I’m convinced now. (He’s stupid.)
EDUARD GRIGORIANN!
Sometimes the Russians spelled his name wrong, because again, EDUARD GRIGORIANN! is this guy they made up, who may be based on the moth’s son in Norm MacDonald’s joke about moths.
Of Course Tucker Carlson Factors In As Moscow’s Useful Idiot In This Story
As spelled out in the indictment, Kostya and Lena were pretty hands-on with the company. They had messaging groups on Discord, including various entities and fake representatives for the very fake EDUARD GRIGORIANN!
But Lena also was like a fake editor, directing and editing coverage and so forth, using fake personae like “Helena Shudra” and “Victoria Pesti.”
Which brings us to the part of the indictment where Lena AKA “Helena Shudra” really really really really wanted Tenet Media to share a video of Tucker Carlson at a Moscow grocery store — you know the one, where he’s like rubbing his boner on the loaves of bread like WHEEEEE BREAD! and having orgasms about the shopping carts.
THIS ONE!
Literally everybody in the world made fun of that video.
On or about February 15, 2024, AFANASYEVA (as "Helena Shudra") shared with U.S. Company-I a video of a well-known U.S. political commentator visiting a grocery store in Russia. AFANASYEVA posted the video in the Producer Discord Channel. Later that day, Producer-I privately messaged Founder-2 on Discord: "They want me to post this" - referencing the video that AFANASYEVA had posted - but "it just feels like overt shilling." Founder-2 replied that Founder-I "thinks we should put it out there." Producer-I acquiesced, responding, "alright I'll put it out tomorrow."
“It just feels like overt shilling,” the producer said to the founder who allegedly knew exactly who they were working for. Just kinda felt icky, sounds like.
But the founders thought it was worth sharing! The founders who were working for the Russians and knew it!
In March of 2024, when terrorists struck a concert hall in Moscow, Lena (as “Helena Shudra”) had a very specific request for how Tenet Media’s talent handle that news:
[O]n or about March 23, 2024, AFANASYEVA (as "Helena Shudra") privately messaged Founder-1 on Discord asking that "one of our creators . .. record something about [the] Moscow terror attack." Despite public reporting that the foreign terrorist organization ISIS had claimed responsibility for the attack, AFANASYEVA requested that U.S. Company-I blame Ukraine and the United States, writing: "I think we can focus on the Ukraine/U.S. angle .... [T]he mainstream media spread fake news that ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack yet ISIS itself never made such statements. All terrorists are now detained while they were heading to the border with Ukraine which makes it even more suspicious why they would want to go to Ukraine to hide." Founder-I responded that Founder-I would ask Commentator-3, and, the next day, confirmed that Commentator-3 said "he's happy to cover it."
Happy to blame it on Ukraine just randomly!
(Again, “Commentator 3” would either be Benny Johnson or Taylor Hansen, according to the journalists who have figured out these things.)
The Talent Is Shocked, Shocked! (They Are Very Stupid)
Again, the indictment says the true nature of this media company, its founders, its editorial direction and its funding was concealed from the talent. Not hard to do, because they’re fucking dumb.
Benny Johnson’s response is that he is officially APPALLED APPALLED please write in the newspaper that he is APPALLED. (Paraphrase.)
Benny is also so stupid he apparently thinks the indictment was “leaked”? Maybe not the verb you’re looking for there, champ.
Dave Rubin forcefully tweeted the part of the indictment that proves he was dense enough to fall for the lie that he was being funded by somebody who appears to be a character in Norm MacDonald’s moth joke.
He thought he was working for GREGARRO! Or whatever that guy’s fake name was!
Tim Pool apparently had a response that said he’s very upset, but he’s deleted it, per The Fucking News.
So that’s what’s happening here.
As for RT, it has also responded:
RT reacted to the U.S. government actions with an email that mocked the indictment and included, “Hahahaha!”
OK.
Oh, there was a second Russian influence indictment yesterday, we should mention:
Justice officials said that in a separate legal action, prosecutors seized 32 Russian-controlled internet domains that were used in a state-controlled effort called “Doppelganger” to undermine international support for Ukraine. In addition, the Treasury and State departments announced sanctions on Russian individuals and entities who are accused of disseminating propaganda. […]
“In 2016, you had a clear case of a narrative being changed,” a senior western official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive national security matters. “Now it’s trickier because the world has divided more into camps and there are certain people who get certain information. In the case of Doppelganger, they were trying to fool people into thinking they were looking at normal newspapers or normal news services.”
They’re also trying to freak Americans out over the border and racial tensions. In other words, just helping with traditional Republican electoral strategy and messaging.
It’s September 5. Imagine what else we’re going to find out in the next two months.
[DoJ / indictment / Washington Post]
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Say what you will about the Russians, they sure have a knack for finding useful idiots.
100k. A week. For shilling for fascist, genocidal regimes...
Meanwhile, I'm "living" on $300 a week while looking for a job.
It doesn't pay to be an honest citizen.