Moscow funnelled $10 million to main employer of Hungarian government's cherished influencers, according to US DOJ indictment

As previously reported, the U.S. government has accused Russia of trying to flood the American public with fake news and disinformation through media publications, unsuspecting influencers and fake profiles with the objective of influencing the November presidential election. At the same time as the announcement, the Department of Treasury announced sanctions against the heads of the Russian state-run propaganda outlet RT (formerly named Russia Today).

In fact, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has indicted two RT employees, 31-year-old Kostyantin Kalashnikov, also known as Kostya, and 27-year-old Elena Afanasieva, also known as Lena, with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Additionally, as Szabad Európa has also noticed, the indictment also mentions a Hungarian company.

At the centre of the Russian attempt to influence lies the Tennessee-based media company Tenet Media, which has not been specifically named but can be identified with 100% certainty. The founders of Tenet Media – which also appears in one of Elon Musk's conspiracy theory-themed posts – are none other than conservative YouTube influencer and political commentator Lauren Chen, host of BlazeTV, and her husband Liam Donovan. Chen recently visited Hungary as a speaker at the MCC Fest (MCC is an educational center with very close ties to the Hungarian government) and was at the time featured on the Facebook page of Balázs Orbán, the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Political Director.

The company employed a number of prominent right-wing influencers who have been featured in the Hungarian government media, including

• Dave Rubin, who spoke at an event of the pro-government Danube Institute last year, praising Hungary's child protection law;
• Lauren Southern, with whom Pesti Srácok conducted an exclusive phone interview in 2018 about how much trouble the Western civilisation is in;
• Benny Johnson, who praised Hungarian PM Orbán on TikTok saying that he could destroy the Democratic Party in 46 seconds.

Tenet has received $10 million from the Russian government via RT; according to US Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, "in a scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging". According to the indictment, Chen and her associates were aware that they were working with Russian nationals but did not register with the Attorney General. However, the influencers they employed were unaware of the Russian connection. After the indictment was made public, Benny Johnson and Tim Pool both claimed on their social media pages that they were merely victims in the story.

The accused RT employees were actively involved in Tenet Media's operations; for example, Kalashnikov monitored Tenet's internal communications and also contributed as a video editor, while Afanasyeva also edited, posted and provided content guidance to the company's staff using several fake-profiles. The latter implies that she instructed the company's employees to post pro-Russian positions and content, such as the claim that Ukraine and the US were responsible for the March massacre at Moscow's Crocus City Hall – for which the Islamic State assumed responsibility.

While it appears that Hungarian government-friendly think-tanks and institutions have a close relationship with Russian propagandists, the Hungarian corporate thread unraveled by Szabad Európa is quite thin. The indictment mentions a Hungarian shell company – literally a shell company, since it is only listed as 'Hungarian Shell Entity 1' – which was supposed to have an unclear role in the creation of a new channel called 'Viewpoint Productions', intended to search for and employ new influencers. According to the article, the company does not even have a website.