It’s Hilariously Easy To Fool Right-Wing Media

How easy is it to fool high-profile right-wing media personalities into joining an alleged Russian influence operation?

A federal indictment this week revealed the answer.

The 32-page charging document alleged that two employees of the Russian media company RT, formerly known as Russia Today, undertook a conspiracy to launder money and violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Using nearly $10 million allegedly laundered through shell companies, the pair — Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva — worked “to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said Wednesday.

Key to the operation were a handful of fake personas the Russians allegedly used to appear legitimate to unwitting on-air personalities. The indictment dubbed their media venture “U.S. Company-1,” and it has been widely identified as the right-wing startup Tenet Media, which shuttered Thursday.

The main character of the Russians’ narrative was “Eduard Grigoriann,” a fictitious globe-trotting businessman and banker. He had no digital footprint, nor any public record of his existence, the indictment found.

He was allegedly represented by various “personas” who pretended to be his employees ― all of whom in fact were the same person, though the indictment did not identify this person by name.

Tenet’s founders, Lauren Chen and her husband, Liam Donovan ― referred to as “Founder-1” and “Founder-2″ in the indictment ― repeatedly referred to Grigoriann during communications with Tenet’s media personalities, describing him as an investor and the source of the company’s money, according to prosecutors.

Chen did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s questions Friday, nor did HuffPost receive a response from a message portal for Tenet. (Donovan does not have a public-facing email address).

But the indictment suggested the pair knew Grigoriann was a fake: “Despite describing U.S. Company-1′s investor … as ‘Eduard Grigoriann,’ a purported finance professional in Western Europe, Founder-1 and Founder-2 admitted to each other in their private communications that their ‘investors’ were, in truth and in fact, the ‘Russians,’” the indictment alleged.

Around February last year, “Founder-1,” which appears to be Chen, “solicited Commentator-1 and Commentator-2 to perform work on behalf of ‘Eduard Grigoriann,’” the indictment alleged.

“Commentator-1” and “Commentator-2” appear to be right-wing media personalities and former Tenet contributors Dave Rubin and Tim Pool, according to analysis from NBC News and others.

That month, Chen sent Pool an email introducing Pool to “Eduard Grigoriann” and set up a call between them and others, which occurred around Feb. 22, 2023, the indictment said. Around that same time, Chen said in an email to “Persona-1” — one of Grigoriann’s supposed representatives — that Pool was “happy with the licensing arrangement that was discussed” but “still would like to know more about the company and who he will be working with.”

Chen noted that she assured Pool “that as we finalize the contract and begin working to put his show together and coordinate the launch, everyone will have time to get to know each other better and feel less like strangers!”

Rubin also wanted some more information, according to Chen, who said in an email to Persona-1 that the commentators would “like some material about Mr Grigoriann to learn a bit about who [Rubin would] be working with.” She asked if there “any links (press release, interviews, Linkedin, profiles, etc) we can forward” to Rubin about Grigoriann.

Aside from a LinkedIn page for Grigoriann’s media company, Persona-1 didn’t have anything for Chen. In April, the indictment alleged, Chen performed Google searches for Grigoriann and found no results. She followed up with another email, stressing that Rubin was “really insisting on seeing some materials (profile, article, whatever) on Eduard before [he] feels comfortable moving forward. Is there anything we can provide [Rubin] with?”

At that point, Persona-1 emailed a “CV” to provide to Rubin, according to the indictment, which reproduced it:

Rubin, though he did not respond to HuffPost’s questions, was apparently unfazed by the fake resumé, and the indictment makes no mention of any questions he may have had about Grigoriann’s lack of a digital footprint.

Except for one thing: He apparently didn’t like that Grigoriann’s CV used the phrase “social justice.”

“I think it may be because that’s usually a term used by liberals, but we’re trying to create a conservative network,” Chen told Persona-1. Chen asked Persona-1 to set up a Zoom meeting between Rubin and “Grigoriann.”

That meeting revealed another red flag: It was scheduled for 5 p.m. Paris time, but Grigoriann logged on an hour early, according to the indictment. (He would have been on time if attending from Moscow’s time zone, which is an hour later than Paris, the indictment noted.)

“Approximately two minutes later, ‘Eduard Grigoriann’ performed a Google search for ‘time in Paris,’” the indictment alleged. “‘Eduard Grigoriann’ then replied again to his email, in part: ‘Sorry, wrong hour. Didn’t sync the calendar.’”

This was apparently enough to convince Rubin. Well, that and a few million dollars.

After further negotiations, his production company agreed to a contract with Tenet in which he would host four weekly videos in exchange for a $400,000 monthly fee, $100,000 signing bonus and additional performance incentives, according to the indictment.

“After receiving the fictitious profile, [Rubin] agreed to work with [Tenet] and produced approximately 130 videos that were published on [Tenet’s] platform,” the indictment said.

It’s not clear if Pool saw the fake resumé, but he was also apparently unbothered by working with “Grigoriann.” According to the indictment, his production company came to an agreement with Tenet in which he would receive $100,000 per video.

Pool also did not respond to HuffPost’s questions, but he maintains that if the indictment’s allegations are true, he was “deceived.” Rubin similarly said he and other commentators were “victims” of a “scheme.”

Four other commentators were mentioned in the indictment, though they were similarly not named. Tenet’s four other commentators were Lauren Southern, Tayler Hansen, Matt Christiansen and Benny Johnson. Southern does not appear to have released a statement on the indictment, but Hansen, Christiensen, and Johnson similarly disavowed any involvement with the alleged crimes and stressed they made their own editorial choices.