71 years ago, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for espionage. The married couple, members of the U.S. Communist Party, had been convicted of passing American defense secrets, including information about the U.S. atomic weapons program, rocket programs, and radar, to the Soviet Union.
Last week, a Nashville-based PR firm, Tenet Media, was clearly the money-laundering stooge in a Justice Department indictment against two Russian nationals alleged to have funneled nearly $10 million dollars through Tenet to promote Kremlin-sponsored propaganda through prominent American right-wing influencers.
And very, very few Americans are going to care about Tenet Media paying influencers up to $100,000 per video to promote a Kremlin agenda. Julius Rosenberg got $100 bonuses from his Soviet handlers for recruiting new information sources and went to the electric chair for it.
2024 will mark the third election bombarded by hostile state disinformation. And American voters are inured to it. That's a shame. What's worse, is that influencers are more interested in money and followers than patriotism and ethics.
The Tenet Media story is pretty simple. Two right-wing communications professionals were approached in 2023 by two employees working for RT, a Russian state media company, and offered money to develop an influencer network. Husband and wife Lauren Chen and Liam Donovan founded Tenet Media to launch the network, recruiting among others, Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin, Lauren Southern, Tayler Hansen and Matt Christiansen.
These high-profile influencers were paid up to $400,000 a month in their contracts with Tenet, or $100,000 per video. Tenet Media's shows have gotten more than 16 million views on YouTube and featured RNC chair Lara Trump, U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
Most of the Tenet talent team have pulled their videos and content and disavowed their relationship with Tenet since the DOJ indictment last week. Did they ever ask who was paying Tenet?
Co-founder Chen had had essays published on RT prior to launching Tenet, so it's likely that she knew what she was getting into, despite the murky trail and assumed names on the Tenet contract and payments. While Tenet Media is not itself facing charges, shame on them for accepting funds from such questionable sources.
And for their "talent pool": there is an acronym used in counterintelligence training to list the reasons someone might consider treason, espionage, or similar un-American activity – MICE. MICE stands for Money, Ideology, Compromise and Ego.
It's not hard to see in the world of online influencers that it is definitely "ME first": Money and Ego. If the cash is there to help build your followers, and you are already in the habit of saying absolutely anything to grow your audience, it's a good bet you are going to take that cash and not ask too many questions about where it is coming from.
Speaking of MICE, Tenet's talent has bolted as if leaving a sinking ship. Of course, Tenet Media is no more. Johnson is taking the "nothing to see here" approach: he posted that his lawyers "negotiated a standard, arms length deal, which was later terminated." Incidentally, in a previous life, Johnson managed to be fired from journalistic exemplar BuzzFeed ten years ago for 41 instances of plagiarism.
Pool is a livestreaming pioneer who was among the first to successfully monetize social media content creation. He calls himself "center-libertarian-left" and made his name in the livestream business in the Occupy Wall Street movement. He's also promoted conspiracy theories, antisemitism, and interviewed Kanye West on his podcast. He simply goes where the followers are, and I don't think he cares who pays him. Pool is bravely showing an anti-Russia stance. "We still do not know what is true as these are only allegations," he said. "Putin is a scumbag."
Dave Rubin simply reposted Johnson's and Pool's posts (but reposting isn't plagiarism in today's Brave New World!). He does a lot on BlazeTV, Glenn Beck's online network. Pool, Johnson, and Rubin, along with the remaining "commentators," just want two things: fame and money. This does make them ripe targets for Russian influence.
And Americans, as we isolate with our phones and tablets, are also ripe targets. We don't want to watch a nightly news broadcast anymore with the rest of the nation. That's boring. We want to watch exciting, controversial outbursts that map to a narrative that aligns with our own personal beliefs – even if the narrative is untrue.
The two indicted Russian RT employees, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, are out of the country. Even if they can be extradited, they won't face execution; they are only charged with violating rules around registering as a foreign agent, not turning over defense secrets to a foreign nation.
The Rosenbergs' case still generates controversy today. Other co-defendants were merely given 30-year prison terms, not sentenced to death. Last weeks' indictment, illustrating more than eight years of Russian attempts to influence our elections and political discourse, will generate no controversy.
We're too busy clicking on videos, not caring who paid the commentators to rant. As long as we agree with the narrative, where it came from doesn't matter. We're perfectly willing to be manipulated to stay in our comfortable digital coccoon. Russia wants Donald Trump to win the election. Iran prefers Kamala Harris. China doesn't have a clear favorite but is so busy mining our data from TikTok to expand its economic advantages and prepare for its next major hack it doesn't really matter.
Surely, we could shake off our personal isolationism, give a damn, and search out real information. Will we?
Merritt Hamilton Allen is a PR executive and former Navy officer. She appeared regularly as a panelist on NM PBS and is a frequent guest on News Radio KKOB. A Republican for 36 years, she became an independent upon reading the 2024 Republican platform. She lives amicably with her Democratic husband north of I-40 where they run one head of dog, and two of cat. She can be reached at
