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A cadre of right-wing online personalities including Dave Rubin, Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, and Lauren Southern have all allegedly become unwitting agents of Russian information warfare and its activities in the United States, according to an alarming 32-page federal indictment unsealed by the US District Court of the Southern District of New York on Wednesday.
The group of far-right and right-leaning influencers, most of whom are known for podcasts and YouTube shows, are all members or former members of Tenet Media, a Nashville-based content creation company co-owned by yet another well-known conservative media pundit, Lauren Chen.
The Department of Justice is alleging that since its founding in 2022, Tenet has served as a front for Russian agents to spread Russian state-directed content using each of these pundits’ platforms.
“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 […]
The difference between good Journalism and great Journalism is the follow-up question. The one that highlights the unexpected. My follow-up question to the US AG would be: Is the United States ready to stop interfering in other countries elections? Recent history is replete with examples of USAID and the CIA interfering in the elections of other countries starting after WWII and continuing to the present. Just to take two countries: Italy, where the US was deathly afraid the communists would win, and so we manipulated and assassinated candidates to Iran where we instigated a coup so the duly elected Prime Minister could not weld power. This does even count all of our invasions and bombing other countries. Any rifts the American Public experiences are not generated by Russia or China. They are all generated here by wealthy inequity and a corrupt political system which does not represent the will of the public. It will be interesting to see how these events play out. Will the charges fade away, demonstrating that the justice department is criminalizing descent, or will they be able to prove these allegations in open court for all to evaluate the truth of the charges?