Yesterday afternoon the Southern District of New York unsealed the indictment in the case U.S. v. Kalashnikov et al., and if that fully automatic defendant surname wasn’t enough to clue you in to where we’re going, then I will clarify: The Russians are at it again, and on current evidence, they’ve lost more than a few mph off of the ol’ fastball in their “American cultural influencer” operation since the days of Dalton Trumbo and Ring Lardner Jr.

Yes, the world of politics was collapsing in laughter yesterday afternoon as it read through the SDNY indictment of Russian nationals Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, because finally we have an honest-to-goodness case of nefarious Russian attempts to warp American politics — their big play in the world of demotic “dissident right” online influence — and it seems so comically pathetic.

Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva are “employees” of Russia Today, the state-owned propaganda network that was chased out of cable-news distribution in America by enraged public opinion after Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine. (I use scare quotes around “employees” because there is a 99 percent chance they are in fact employed by Russian FSB.) The Russian government, acting under the auspices of RT, then decided to further its propaganda goals by surreptitiously funding and directing a “cut-out” — a purportedly American news/opinion organization secretly guided editorially by the Russians.

Thus was born Tenet, a media “talent” organization whose founders, Lauren Chen and her husband Liam Donovan, were aware from the outset it was being created to serve the political ends of the Russian government — because the Russians came to Chen with both the idea and all of the money for it. (In the indictment, they are shown describing their funders, regardless of current pseudonym, as “the Russians.” It is also worth noting here that this is a different Liam Donovan from the well-regarded Capitol Hill veteran and podcaster.)

Tenet’s play was to hire a stable of well-known conservative influencers — intellectual luminaries such as Lauren Southern, Tim Pool, and legendary plagiarist Benny Johnson — to make videos for its platform, while interspersing that content amid a sea of surrounding content written by Russian propagandists. The “big fish” were there to lure viewers into foreign-controlled seas, where they would also be exposed to videos blaming ISIS attacks in Moscow on the Zelensky government and the like — all with the proper tone to simulate an American perspective while pushing Russian interests.

It’s important to note that Tenet was not some preexisting company that decided to take Russian money later; it was formed for the express purpose of promoting Russian government interests by agents of the Russian government, with a full $10 million of seed funding. These people then sought out Chen and Donovan as willing fronts — not dupes, but active collaborators — to be used to further Russia’s ultimate geostrategic goals: most immediately, the weakening of right-wing commitment to supporting Ukraine’s fight against Russia. Prosecutors allege only two crimes, failure to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act and money-laundering, and notably indict only the Russians, already well beyond the physical reach of U.S. jurisdiction. (This means either that Chen and Donovan are cooperating witnesses or that they are about to have an exceedingly unpleasant autumn.)

But let’s also talk for a moment about who Lauren Chen is, because part of the Russian play here was to buy into Chen’s pre-established credibility. Neither Chen, who made her name initially as a YouTuber spouting conservative slogans, nor her husband is American (they are Canadian), though Chen’s fame comes from her commentary on American politics, most prominently on Glenn Beck’s BlazeTV channel.

Chen’s path to prominence closely mirrors that of fellow social-media-era star Candace Owens: a charismatic minority female offering Oprahfied conservative red meat. Both similarly went off the reservation with antisemitism years ago whilst being inexplicably tolerated by their parent organizations. Owens’s adventures with The Daily Wire need no rehearsal here, but as early as May 2021, Chen was expounding with ominous cheer at The Blaze about “The Right’s Israel Obsession,” and her Twitter account since October 7 has taken a turn for the “unsubtle” when it comes to Jews and Israel. (The Blaze announced today that it has formally terminated Lauren Chen.) So I can hardly claim to be shocked to discover she has also been prostituting herself to Putin’s Russia, while skillfully pimping out dopey political influencers herself. (Understand: I am surprised at this particular twist in the narrative, but considering who is involved? Hardly shocked.)

What of those influencers? I can do no better in this case than to quote the exact words of Jim Treacher today: Benny Johnson and Tim Pool are claiming ignorance, and I believe them. The indictment specifically stipulates that they were deceived as to who was hiring them to record viral videos — they were told Tenet was funded by a private European investor named “Eduard Grigoriann” — and there is no evidence yet that they knew their names and reputations were being used as flypaper to lure unsuspecting viewers into a Russian propaganda mill. But it does make one wonder how insanely rich top YouTube celebrities must be if, when approached by a mysteriously unsearchable donor willing to pay millions for a few viral videos, they think, “Yeah, that matches my typical fee, no need to ask any weird questions,” and proceed.

As for myself, I fear there is an entire rotten nest of corruption lurking deeper within the “dissident right” online-influencer world. I suspect there are more players in this game than the obvious ones, too: not just obvious malefactors like Russia and China. As a friend notes, China has been far savvier in its investments — lobbyists, think-tankers, and legislative aides — than Russia with its tattered cadre of fringe commentators.

So I’ll end on a note of agonizingly perfect synchronicity, given my recent writing: Earlier this year one of the Russian funders/defendants in this court case demanded that Tenet’s production staff push Tucker Carlson’s (independently made) video about an orgasmic visit to a Moscow grocery store on its own distribution network. And one of the producers — one well aware of Tenet’s nature as a Russian government propaganda mill — refused to do it at first. “They want me to post it,” said the Russian propagandist, but “it just feels like overt shilling.” One can only marvel at the irony, or wonder whether it indeed was, as it felt like at the time, overt shilling.