How Tim Pool and Dave Rubin Wound Up on Putin's Payroll - The Thursday AM Quickie 9/5/24
Thursday's newsletters are usually reserved for paying subscribers, but I'm giving today's Big News away for free as a gift. As always, feel free to share! - Corey
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9/5: It's an EmMajority Report Thursday! She speaks with Rena Steinzor, research professor of law at the University of Maryland, to discuss her recent book American Apocalypse: The Six Far-Right Groups Waging War on Democracy. Then, she speaks with Luke Goldstein, writing fellow at The American Prospect, to discuss the Nebraska Senate race, particularly independent candidate Dan Osborn.
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THE BIG NEWS
DOJ Indictment: Russia Secretly Paid Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and Other Far-Right 'Influencers' Millions of Dollars to Spread Propaganda
As a lifelong journalist, I can't recommend this business to anyone strongly motivated by money. Some Pulitzer Prize winners could make more money working at Target. There is no such expectation of poverty in the right-wing propaganda sphere, where billions of dollars slosh around in the service of bigotry, fundamentalist religious indoctrination, multilevel marketing scams, industry deregulation, and tax cuts. Which goes to my point that if you offered millions of dollars to any journalist with a smidge of integrity just for sharing and appearing in some low-effort online videos, they would immediately be suspicious about where the money was coming from and how they were being used. In fact, most real working journalists, even pundits, would be fired for agreeing to such an arrangement without performing due diligence or disclosing the relationship.
Now let's talk about Dave Rubin and Tim Pool – or, as they are apparently referred to in a new Justice Department indictment, "Commentator-1" and "Commentator-2."* Let's not call them journalists. Readers of this newsletter know them as exceedingly well-paid right-wing propagandists. And today we have more information about who's been footing the bill for their bullsh*t than we did yesterday morning.
Rubin and Pool were the most famous names to partner with Tenet Media, a Tennessee company that federal prosecutors allege served as a front for a "hostile influence campaign" orchestrated by the government of Aspiring Tsar Vladimir Putin. You can read the full 32-page indictment here, and the extensive day-one coverage in the Nashville Tennessean, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, NBC News, CBS News, CBC News, USA Today, CNN, Mother Jones, Wired, and HuffPost.
In brief, two Russian nationals who worked for state propaganda network Russia Today allegedly funnelled nearly $10 million through Tenet to the company's select "network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues," including Rubin and Pool as well as Lauren Southern and Benny Johnson, and the lesser-known Matt Christiansen and Tayler Hansen. To be clear, none of these commentators were criminally charged; nor were the founders and employees of Tenet Media. The two Russia-based RT employees, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, were charged with conspiring to commit money laundering and to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The purpose of their operation, the feds say, was "to amplify domestic divisions in the United States," on issues ranging from transgender rights to the violent insurrection led by Donald Trump, and to advance Russian foreign policy objectives, including undermining American support for Ukraine's defense.
"Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims," Pool wrote yesterday in an X statement addressing the indictment. "Never at any point did anyone other than I have full editorial control." Rubin also calls himself a "victim" and says he won't comment further on the matter.
Are these fascist-friendly blowhards swimming in millions truly "victims"? Let's consider the facts presented by the US government. According to the indictment, Pool, Rubin, and the other commentators retained by Tenet to shill for Russia were indeed "deceive[d]." Tenet's founders told them the company "was sponsored by a private investor named 'Eduard Grigoriann'" based in Paris, when in "truth and in fact, Grigoriann was a fictional persona" employed by Russian government agents in Moscow.
And, to their credit, Pool and Rubin, at least, did ask for some information about this Grigoriann person before taking large sums of his money. But what questions did they ask? And how hard did they push?
After speaking via encrypted voice chat with someone presenting themselves as Grigoriann in Feb. 2023, Commentator-2 [likely Pool], was said to be "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." A Tenet founder assured him "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!" They seem to have gotten to know each other well enough to satisfy Commentator-2's concerns and the arrangement went ahead, providing for weekly videos to be hosted [apparently by Pool] and livestreamed [by Tenent] "in exchange for a fee of $100,000 per video."
Commentator-1 [likely Rubin] also had questions about "Eduard Grigoriann." In May, 2023, in response to his insistence on "seeing some materials (profile, article, whatever)" on the mystery investor, Tenet passed along the following fictitious biography.
It is extremely dodgy:
This bio did raise a red flag for the notoriously deep-thinking Commentator-1. But he wasn't concerned about the vague descriptions and other possible clues that Grigoriann was not a real person. No, the pundit had other concerns. As a Tenet founder recounted, per the indictment, Commentator-1 had "a problem with the profile we sent over, specifically the reference to '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."
The Tenet founder responded by suggesting that Commentator-1 "and Eduard could simply speak together" to clarify the information in the bogus profile. A few months later, following further negotiations, the parties had a deal: Commentator-1's company would produce "four weekly videos" in exchange "for a monthly fee of $400,000, plus a $100,000 signing bonus and an additional performance bonus." Nice work if you can get it (and you don't care about ethics, morals, or free press solidarity)!
According to the Justice Department, Tenet and their Russian government financiers were well aware "that Commentator-1 and Commentator-2 would not be profitable to employ." Between Oct. 2023 and Aug. 2024, Tenet "received approximately 30 wire transfers from foreign entities totaling approximately $9.7 million" and "disbursed most of these funds to its contracted commentators, including approximately $8.7 million to the production companies of Commentator-1, Commentator-2, and Commentator-3 alone." That's the magic of the free market, folks.
In his statement, Pool insisted he maintained editorial control over videos he appeared in that Tenet published, but much about the arrangement remains unclear. Prosecutors allege that Kalashnikov "monitored [Tenet]'s internal communications and edited content published by [Tenet], without disclosing that he was an RT employee." It further alleges that Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva "monitored and directed [Tenet]'s activities under the guise of an outside editing firm." And by June of this year, the indictment says, Tenet's founders had allegedly authorized the two Russian RT employees "to post content directly...bypassing [Tenet's] employees altogether."
This all raises questions about how exactly the sausage was made, and by who. Perhaps more details will emerge as this case proceeds. The Tenet video library, which remains online for now, speaks for itself.
Commentator-1's contract specified that Tenet owned "any and all content created" under the agreement; whereas Commentator-2's contract "granted [Tenet] 'a non-exclusive, non-transferable'" license. But, according to the indictment, the relationship exceeded the precise terms of those contracts.
Afanasyeva "demanded" that Tenet founders press the company's "hired commentators" to share RT propaganda with their "pre-existing audiences." For example:
"On or about February 16, 2024, AFANASYEVA (as 'Helena Shudra') messaged Founder-1 on Discord: 'I do worry that neither [Commentator-3] nor [Commentator-1] share any raw videos posted on X. [Commentator-2] shared only one video this week. [Commentator-4] didn't share any raw videos, she only shared her mini doc and its promo. [Commentator-5] is good at sharing our content so far.'"
A few days later, Afanasyeva, using a pseudonym, pressed Tenet to ask the commentator's "media managers to share raw videos (with subtitles), 'at least one share per day. Not one share per week."
"I know this is not an obligation [under their contracts], but we are falling behind with numbers and we need to make our best [effort] so the creators can share one raw video per day," she wrote.
Tenet then introduced Afanasyeva under yet another pseudonym on a company Discord chat as a member of "our investor's team" to reiterate the request that hired commentators share certain videos every day. The indictment does not record how the "talent" responded to that request.
But the back-and-forth over video sharing does make one wonder, why weren't Tenet Media's biggest stars eagerly promoting the business that had struck deals with them worth millions of dollars? Were they just lazy? Were they holding out for more money? Were they feeling somehow victimized? Or perhaps they felt, for whatever reason, that it would not be in their interests to call any more attention to their relationship with "Eduard Grigoriann" and his enterprise than was contractually necessary?
Say what you will about these freaky far-right propagandists, it seems they managed to find one weird trick to get rich in online media. Alas, money still can't buy true respect.
* The indictment refers to Commentator-1 and Commentator-2 as partners of "US Company-1," widely reported to be Tenet Media, "who respectively have over 2.4 million and 1.3 million YouTube subscribers." As NBC News also observed, the Rubin Report has 2.44 million subscribers, and Timcast has 1.37 million. (The subscriber numbers in the indictment do not appear to apply to other Tenet partners Benny Johnson, who has 2.39 million subscribers; Lauren Southern, who has 712,000; Matt Christiansen, with 235,000; or Tayler Hansen, with "2.85K subscribers.")