It’s incredibly easy to fool the right-wing media

How easy is it to trick prominent right-wing media figures into joining an alleged Russian influence operation?

A federal indictment revealed the answer this week.

The 32-page indictment alleges that two employees of Russian media company RT, formerly known as Russia Today, engaged in a conspiracy to launder money and violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Using nearly $10 million allegedly laundered through shell companies, the duo — Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva — worked “to create and distribute content to the American public with hidden messages from the Russian government,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said Wednesday.

The operation was carried out using a handful of fake profiles that the Russians allegedly used to impersonate legitimate on-air personalities who were unaware. The indictment dubbed their media company “US Company-1,” and it was widely identified as the far-right startup Tenet Media, which shut down Thursday.

The main character in the Russians’ story was “Eduard Grigoriann,” a fictional globe-trotting businessman and banker. He had no digital or public record of his existence, according to the indictment.

He was allegedly represented by several “persons” who claimed to be his employees – all of whom were in fact the same person, although the indictment did not identify that person by name.

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

Chen did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s questions Friday, and HuffPost did not receive a response from an email portal for Tenet. (Donovan does not have a public email address.)

But the indictment suggests the couple knew Grigoriann was an imposter: “Although they described the investor in U.S. Company 1… as ‘Eduard Grigoriann,’ a purported financial 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 alleges.

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

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

That month, Chen sent Pool an email introducing Pool to “Eduard Grigoriann” and arranged a call between them and others, which took place around Feb. 22, 2023, according to the indictment. Around the same time, Chen said in an email to “Persona-1” — one of Grigoriann’s alleged representatives — that Pool was “satisfied with the licensing agreement that was discussed” but “would still like to learn more about the company and who he will be working with.”

Chen noted that she assured Pool that “as we finalized the contract and began working on organizing her show and coordinating the launch, everyone would have time to get to know each other better and feel less like strangers!”

Rubin also wanted more information, according to Chen, who said in an email to Persona-1 that commenters “would like to have some background on Mr. Grigoriann to learn a little bit more about the person[Rubin]would be working with.” She asked if there were “any links (press releases, interviews, Linkedin, profiles, etc.) that we could forward” to Rubin about Grigoriann.

Aside from a LinkedIn page for Grigoriann’s media company, Persona-1 had nothing for Chen. In April, according to the indictment, Chen conducted Google searches for Grigoriann and found no results. She then sent another email, noting that Rubin “really insisted on seeing certain materials (profile, article, etc.) on Eduard before (he) feels comfortable moving forward. Is there anything we can bring to (Rubin)?

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

Rubin, though he did not respond to HuffPost’s questions, was apparently unfazed by the fake resume, 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 maybe it’s because it’s generally 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 raised another red flag: It was scheduled for 5 p.m. Paris time, but Grigoriann logged in an hour early, according to the indictment. (He would have been on time if he had come from Moscow time, which is an hour later than Paris time, the indictment says.)

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

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

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

“After receiving the fictitious profile, (Rubin) agreed to work with (Tenet) and produced approximately 130 videos that were posted on (Tenet’s) platform,” the indictment states.

It’s unclear whether Pool saw the fake resume, but it appears he didn’t mind working with “Grigoriann.” According to the indictment, his production company struck a deal with Tenet that would see him paid $100,000 per video.

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

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