A number of high-profile, conservative influencers in the US have said they are “victims” of an alleged Russian disinformation campaign, after the Biden administration accused Moscow of carrying out a sustained campaign to influence the outcome of November’s presidential elections.
Tim Pool and Benny Johnson published statements on Wednesday evening addressing allegations that a US content creation company they were associated with had been provided with nearly $10m from Russian state media employees to publish videos with messages in favour of Moscow’s interests and agenda, including over the war in Ukraine.
The justice department indictment does not name the company, but describes it as a Tennessee-based content creation firm with six commentators and with a website identifying itself as “a network of heterodox commentators that focus on western political and cultural issues”.
That description exactly matches Tenet Media, an online company that hosts videos made by well-known conservative influencers Tim Pool, Benny Johnson and others.
The Guardian has contacted Tenet for comment. The company has not released a statement or commented on the allegations, or responded to other media organisations’ requests for comment, including the New York Times and CBS, according to their reporting.
Tenet Media’s shows in recent months have featured high-profile conservative guests, including Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law and RNC co-chair Lara Trump, former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Republican US senate candidate Kari Lake.
“The company never disclosed to the influencers – or to their millions of followers – its ties to [Russian state media company] RT and the Russian government,” US attorney general Merrick Garland said. His department described Wednesday’s indictment as the most sweeping effort yet to push back against what it says are Russian attempts to spread disinformation ahead of the November presidential election.
The Tennessee-based company published English-language videos on multiple social media channels, including TikTok, Instagram, X, and YouTube, according to the indictment.
Pool, a popular podcaster with more than 2 million followers on X, said “should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims.”
“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.”
Johnson, who has 2.7 million followers on X, said he was “disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment, which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme”.
The justice department accuses two employees of RT, a Russian state media company, of covertly funding the Tennessee-based content company to publish videos in favour of Russia. The justice department says the company did not disclose that it was funded by RT and that neither it nor its founders registered as required by law as an agent of a foreign principal.
RT ceased operating in the US after major television distributors dropped it following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. RT responded with ridicule to requests for comment from the Reuters news agency: “Three things are certain in life: death, taxes and RT’s interference in the US elections.”
Garland said: “The justice department’s message is clear: We will have no tolerance for attempts by authoritarian regimes to exploit our democratic systems of government.”
The nearly 2,000 videos posted by the company have received more than 16m views on YouTube alone, prosecutors said. The company paid $8.7m to the production companies of three of the online stars it recruited, according to the indictment.
The commentators, who were not named in the indictment, did not know they were paid by RT, the Justice Department said.
In one instance, the indictment said, one of the RT employees asked the company to produce a video that would blame Ukraine and the United States for a mass shooting at a Moscow music venue, the justice department said, even though Islamic State had claimed responsibility. A company founder responded that one of the commentators is “happy to cover it”, according to the indictment.
As part of the indictment, the Biden administration seized Kremlin-run websites and charged two Russian state media employees in its most sweeping effort yet to push back against what it says are Russian attempts to spread disinformation ahead of the November presidential election.
The treasury department also sanctioned the RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, and nine other employees of the network over the campaign of disinformation around the elections. Simonyan is a “central figure in Russian government malign influence efforts” the department said.
Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report