Useful Idiots: DOJ Moves from Name-and-Shame to Name-and-Disrupt
In the Election Task Force presser at which DOJ also rolled out two operations against Russian foreign malign influence last week, Merrick Garland described that the investigation into RT’s efforts to hide its efforts in the US was ongoing. “The charges unsealed this morning do not represent the end of the investigation. It remains active and ongoing.”
Indeed, last week, Tim Pool (believed to be Commentator-2 in the RT indictment) revealed that he would assist in the investigation (presumably meaning he’ll sit for the interview the FBI requested).
The language Pool used — the emphasis on a voluntary interview, one echoed by Benny Johnson’s more equivocal statement about his response to a similar FBI invitation — suggests DOJ is treating Pool, and so presumably most of the other commentators described in the indictment, as media under DOJ’s recently updated media guidelines.
Not so Lauren Chen herself — or at least, not Tenet Media. After all, the indictment describes several Discord servers — a general one, one focused on “funders,” another on “producers,” and another for one of the commentators — that all seem to be part of Tenet’s overarching Discord server run by Chen. To get legal process on that, as they clearly did, prosecutors would have had to convince DOJ’s National Security Division head, Matt Olsen, that Tenet or Chen either aren’t media or fit into one of the designated exceptions to the media rule.
Prosecutors might do that through Chen’s (or her spouse, Liam Donovan’s) past work with RT, after such time as it had registered as an agent of Russia in 2017. Or, if DOJ could prove that Chen knew the Russians she was working for were just an extension of her pre-existing RT contract, that might also satisfy the exception for “a foreign power or agent of a foreign power.” But even Chen’s acceptance of US-bound payments via wire from “Turkish Shell Entity-1” described as, “BUYING GOODS-INV.013-IPHONE 15 PRO MAX 512GB” would likely reach an aid-and-abet standard for RT’s alleged money laundering.
According to the indictment, the many cut-outs via which she (and by association, the podcasters) were being paid, were visible to her. None were in France, where the fictional funder of the project purportedly lived. She was witting to the money laundering alleged in the indictment, which probably qualifies her for an exception to the media guidelines. Charging that money laundering may be one step in justifying a broader investigation into Chen, including one that extends into her other roles in the far right network at Glenn Beck’s show and on Turning Point USA.
This post, which I started last week, was going to be a post laying out how all of last week’s activities seem to be an attempt to move beyond DOJ’s prior approach of name-and-shaming foreign hackers, to a name-and-disrupt approach. Lawfare did such a post earlier this week, and Alex Finley did one focused on RT and Doppelganger.
But I’m going to post the part of that larger post focused on RT now, because State just rolled out the next step of this name-and-disrupt operation: sharing intelligence showing how RT has become a front for Russia’s broader intelligence operations.
The State Department revealed declassified US intelligence findings that suggest RT is fully integrated into Russia’s intelligence operations around the world and announced it is launching a diplomatic campaign to provide countries with information about the risks associated with RT activities.
“Thanks to new information, much of which originates from RT employees, we know that RT possessed cyber capabilities and engaged in covert information and influence operations and military procurement,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday.
A key finding from the new US intelligence is that, for more than a year, the Russian government has quietly embedded an intelligence-gathering unit within RT that is focused on influence operations globally. That activity has been part of US officials described as a big expansion of RT’s role as an arm and mouthpiece of the Kremlin abroad. The activity goes beyond propaganda and covert influence operations to even include military procurement, according to US officials.
The flyer from State laying this out lists cover operations in Germany, France, and Argentina.
DOJ presumably timed last week’s indictment to beat the 60-day prohibition on announcements that might effect an election. But it was presumably also coordinated with Anthony Blinken’s trip to Eastern Europe, whence he just returned.
It appears that rolling out the indictment did two things. First, it laid out how this works, how a persona sets up an allegedly witting front, like Lauren Chen, to effectively recruit useful idiots on Russia’s behalf.
But by unrolling the indictment last week, DOJ likely facilitated further investigation of the Tenet operation.
It’s likely, for example, that DOJ needs cooperation from the podcasters like Benny and Pool to pursue an investigation into Chen any further. At the very least, prosecutors would have to lock them into statements that they had no idea they were working for RT. Those statements might not be entirely persuasive, mind you, but such statements would be crucial to showing that Chen was part of the RT deception, part of an effort by an agent of Russia to spread their propaganda via unwitting cut-outs.
By rolling out the indictment in the way they did, DOJ gave all the podcasters an incentive to immediately claim ignorance, if for no other reason than to preserve their own brand. As NBC curated, several of the podcasters did claim they were victims, within a day.
Pool said, in part, in a lengthy statement on X: “Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims. I cannot speak for anyone else at the company as to what they do or to what they are instructed.”
[Benny] Johnson, also on X, said: “A year ago, a media startup pitched my company to provide content as an independent contractor. Our lawyers negotiated a standard, arms length deal, which was later terminated. We are disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment, which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme. My lawyers will handle anyone who states or suggests otherwise.”
[Tayler] Hansen said, in part, on X: “These allegations come as a complete shock to me and the other hosts at TENET Media. I want to be as clear as possible, I was never directed to report on any topic and had complete freedom and control over my reporting at all times. I would never agree to any arrangement where I am not the sole person in charge of the stories I cover and content I create.”
[Dave] Rubin said, in part, on X:” These allegations clearly show that I and other commentators were the victims of this scheme. I knew absolutely nothing about any of this fraudulent activity. Period.”
[Matt] Christiansen said, in part, on X: “At no point has anyone ever directed me what to say or not to say, and I would never agree to anything otherwise. My videos and streams for Tenet are exactly the same as my videos and streams on my personal channels. Every word is from me and me alone.” [my emphasis]
And after they did claim to be victims, the FBI called them up and said, “how would you like to sit for a voluntary interview … you know, as a victim?”
This is why I’m way more sympathetic to Pool and Benny’s claims they’re victims than others, who rightly argue they had to have known something sketchy was going on: not because I believe they were that stupid (both could have been, but Pool, who hired Cassandra Fairbanks after she was already tainted as a Sputnik persona, has been swimming in these waters for years). But because DOJ set this up to highly motivate them to position themselves, publicly, as victims and then capitalized on that to take further investigative steps.
But this operation also served to disrupt Russian support of propaganda, which is one of the reasons I view the efforts rolled out last week as an attempt to disrupt ongoing efforts, rather than just an attempt to name-and-shame.
After all, the podcasters (Rubin and Benny had already moved on; the others had not) are out of a hefty paycheck. Tim Pool will either have to find some right wing billionaire to pay wildly inflated rates for his apology for Russia from here on out, or he’ll have to scale back. It might take some weeks to do that. He might even have to give up politicizing the local skateboard park.
By sanctioning RT, among others, upon release of this indictment, not just the Tenet podcasters, but anyone else in the US knowingly on the RT grift, has to drop their gig immediately.
Presumably, a number of other people are doing quietly what former weapons inspector Scott Ritter did quite boisterously last week. Ritter — who, last month, had his house searched — posted that the sanctions on RT meant he had to immediately drop his RT gigs.
Per his claims in a Substack post released since then, Ritter was getting nothing close to what the podcasters were.
Amidst revelations of multi-million dollar deals where influencers were paid $100,000 a week to produce video content, and on-air hosts given million dollar salaries along with other perks, my relationship with Russian state-owned media pales into insignificance, contracted as an outside contributor compensated with what now, by comparison, seems a paltry $250-280 per item published, with the total amount received amounting to less than 7% of my total annual income.
Apparently, my negotiating skills are lacking—rather than insisting that I would not consider any offer under $5 million, I was content with compensation that matched the industry “norm” of between $150-300 per item published. Earlier this year, when RT thought that my interest in contributing had waned, they offered to double the price paid per article; I declined, insisting that we adhere to the letter of our agreement.
And now having done that — having forced people who were being supported by RT to drop their gigs — partners around the world can turn to unpacking similar operations in their own countries.
There are, undoubtedly, other nodes like the Tenet one, both in the US and around the world. This one may have been particularly important to disrupt before the election, because of Chen’s involvement with Turning Point, which will have a key role in Trump’s GOTV.
But whatever she was doing, TPA has cut her off.
I access the RT website from time to time, as I do with Breitbart. In each instance, it is more to see what’s up, than to find “news.” However, sometimes those outlets publish something I find interesting and not covered elsewhere. As one who voted Democrat each time I voted – having passed up the Clinton’s second term effort against Dole and voting for a third person in 2016 – the impact is not there in influencing me. (In 2016 I did vote Dem. down ticket. The Clinton-Gingrich love-in had me passing up that one.) If the sites are available I shall continue to exercise First Amendment rights to seek and discern. I consider it a good thing that the RT website was not shut down. And that DOJ aids my understandings. Finally, I find FOX propaganda stronger and less effective than anything on the RT website.
Looking further down the road, by acting in this way DOJ also is taking steps to minimize the effectiveness of any “Russia Hoax” nonsense that might sway future jurors. If rightwing folks like these are publicly claiming victimhood rather than talking about hoaxes and witch hunts, that’s going to make it harder for others to shout “it’s a hoax! It’s a partisan witchhunt!” as part of their defense.
Oh, yes. Good point!
What DOJ is doing now is considerably more timely and effective than all the previous compromised Mueller post-hoc fol-de-rol.
In a situation like this, what would a veteran attorney tell a “victim” here? Would it be “sit down, shut down, and avoid doing anything in public until after the interview”?
Same question for organizations that came into contact with Chen et alia, like Turning Point America. Would the best legal advice for TPA be to isolate any and all activities she was involved with, accounts she had access to, and/or personnel with whom she interacted?
From what I see, there’d be a strong incentive for such persons and organizations to cease a lot of activity in case their actions could be construed as furthering RT’s illegal activities. However, that brings up awkward questions of chilling Free Speech activity or election interference (since the RNC has outsourced GOTV to TPA).
Not an attorney, veteran or otherwise, but in cases like these, telling a podcaster “avoid doing anything in public until after the interview” is telling them to give up their paycheck until some unknown time in the future. Easy for a lawyer to say to a client, but not terribly helpful from the client’s “keeping food on the table” point of view.
Perhaps something more nuanced might be appropriate, like “Don’t write or talk about Russia or Ukraine until the interview. You’ve got plenty of other stuff to talk about – leave that stuff alone.”
TPA is most likely to take a “it’s a hoax and a witch hunt!” approach, whatever the legal advice might be, IMHO.
Agree on both accounts. Sometimes the law assumes that the Rothchilds married you for your money. And the “griftosphere” in which TPA operates is unlikely to stop doing crimes because they are told it is a crime.
However, my question was focused on the legal advice for and legal exposure of groups/persons working with an accused Russian operative, after the operative was called out and the activities rendered suspect. Is “I was going to monetize this disinformation of Russian origin anyway” a legit defense here?
It might be a “a legit defense” if they stopped immediately upon notice.
If they continue(d) “monetizing”, it would be a problem.
And yes, I would tell them to sit down and STFU completely; knowing that is unlikely to be advice accepted, I wouldn’t even agree to (continue to) represent ’em if they didn’t take my advice to at least stay away from the whole thing.
I’m convinced right-winger operatives are out there playing old liberals with only one mission: to be divisive and nasty and drive targeted commenters off the internet. This happens at liberal sites where the moderation is free and easy. They seem to choose words purpose-designed to transmit custom built psychological distress such as causing a person to think their words are indistinguishable from an AI, and then you are “trying too hard” to prove you exist. They spread paranoia among the other commenters and seem purpose built to convey Beck’s cognitive triad for major depression. They will attack your self-esteem, your sense of social acceptance, and your future. As a long-term commenter at a half dozen sites, I think either something programmatic is happening, or is a new behavior pattern with old Wisconsin liberal grandpas and grandmas.
I have noticed this, too. Lots of gaslighting at certain sites along the lines of Jacob Wohl’s hipster coffee shops from a few years ago, except the coffee shops have been replaced by supposed doctors talking politics in break rooms at hospitals, or parents chatting at their kids’ soccer games. Some of those same commenters at the same sites also did this two years ago to push the narrative of a coming Red wave in the 2022 midterms, and the technique is getting pretty stale.
I’m glad someone else is seeing this. With me, the problem is confounded by me being a longwinded jackass, but even my innocuous, happy comments get attacked. It seems to happen at sites run by Discus primarily, like I’m on a list there. On a Discuss site, a blog I’ve read since Bartcop was thing, a comment of mine will get attacked almost immediately by three or four seemingly in concert. The feeling you get is a kind of desolated, Kafkaesque paranoia, honestly, weird as heck how sophisticated it feels. It’s sad what has become of blogs. Back in the day, you could have a good time screwing off on blogs all day.
One frame for examining Russian influence over the last ten years would have us believing that Trump and the American far right have been useful idiots, unknowingly exploited by devious actors, but fully in charge of their own political movement.
Another one — the one I use — says that the United States has been under constant attack from the Kremlin this entire time, that the Kremlin dictates most of the talking points if not policy, and that many of their “useful idiots” over here have understood the Kremlin’s goals to destabilize and potentially break up the United States. Those Americans approve of those goals, especially when they are in harmony with their own goals to create a permanent apartheid state here.
In short, the United States has been fighting a propaganda war for ten years, and we’ve not exactly been winning. It’s far less a partisan spat than reported, and far more a matter of international intrigue in which one of our parties has given aid and comfort to the enemy.
Of course, our somnambulant news media is too busy getting led around by this Russian campaign to report on it as it really is.
I agree wholly with this sentiment. Except I’d say it’s been overt for 10 years, but was covert for 30+ years before that, starting with the Reagan admin. Much of the covert activity was masked by the Russian illegals program as well as the early infiltration of the “religious right” shortly followed by the NRA.
Is Russia our enemy, if so, who says? They want to promote relations here they feel in their best interests. Israel does that. Are they our enemy? Who says? A balanced outlook at paid influence buying would say both nations are at fault. Much pro-Israel effort is by citizens, AIPAC being an example, whereas the Russians have no equivalent.
Foreign voices in our elections, identified as such and not covert, are just opinions. Opinions hurt you if you let them. If you read an RT online item, you know it is RT, as with a J.Post item. It has a perspective honed to its national issues of the day.
I think the line is if uncertain, and taking money, register as an agent, in case. Saying, “I am a victim. It was an arms length contract negotiation,” seems disingenuous. Know who you’re dealing with. Banks are told to “know the customer.”
How selling opinion by a professional opinion influencer works, with/without disclosure is the question, and how vigorous a prior little used statute should be used is a policy question. If a statute entails a penalty, care is more needed. Hunter Biden has a felony gun conviction, and never fired the thing over two weeks “possession.”
If my speech is quelled or shaped by worry prosecutors are looking, is it crimping free speech, or fostering forced thoughtful free speech?
Following/exposing the money trails matters greatly. If money is paid, what is it buying matters. Detail matters.
I don’t think that’s right — not remotely.
The way I’ve often talked about the 2016 propaganda is that Russia’s efforts were the equivalent of throwing a few matches on the bonfire the GOP has been burning since the Clinton era.
Yes, the Kremlin joins in and affects the direction of some parts of the propaganda. But for most propaganda lines, the GOP doesn’t need help. And the far right is increasingly the entity exporting malign foreign influence into other countries (including Ireland).
Coincidentally, it was early in the Clinton era (93-94) that websites for use by the general public began to emerge. This was long before smartphones were ubiquitous. Many people did not have access to computers at home, so they used the ones at the public library.
White supremacists where I was definitely took advantage of that. And Stormfront (what SPLC calls the first major hate site on the internet) was founded in 1995 by Don Black (David Duke’s friend) in West Palm Beach, FL.
BTW, Michael Cohen says that the only 2 groups that Trump has not spewed hate against are white supremacists and evangelicals.
Any chance anybody asks these tools why it is that their so-called “organic political views” line up so neatly with Putin’s anti-American bullshit propaganda?
I mean, does anything think any of these dopes actually paused for even a few seconds to consider that?
What makes you think they care about their views aligning with Putin’s?
If they’re white supremacists and Putin is a white supremacist and both want white supremacy everywhere, why would they even care about the geopolitical angle?
If they are on record caring whether the check clears, that is one aspect affecting how you look at an opinion; but again, if like minded to a foreign politician, there is still free speech. As Rayne notes. Gazan war opinions go both ways, with no money involved, and free speech arises from free thinking.
Didnt we already know RT was a GRU intel cell pretending to be a sham news outlet? Plenty of Roger Stone acolytes were working for RT back in the run-up to 2016, very online people who pretended to be Bernie fans upset by Hillary’s nomination who then immediately turned ultra MAGA.
Between fake super PACs, fake think tanks, fake advocacy groups, fake news operations, there is virtually nothing in our politics that Russia has not infiltrated or Potemkinized. This is who they have been for more than a century.
I think the difference here is pre-emption, not (as a commenter above notes) post hoc. We, by which I mean the Obama admin, knew in real time that the Russians were involved but in the interests of decency and fair play, did not pre-empt. Hindsight being twenty twenty, we now understand that is not a useful strategy.
So when does Tucker get visited by DOJ for playing footsie with RT during his Moscow visit earlier this year ? He occupies a prime spot on my list of ‘about damn time’ candidates.
Tucker strikes me as someone the intelligence community has been/is/will be watching, until they decide they can’t learn anything more from who he is meeting, speaking with, and otherwise dealing with. They don’t care about him nearly as much as they want to find out more about the folks he is dealing with.
As Smiley (from John LeCarre’s novels) might say, don’t roll up someone like Tucker right away, because we can learn a lot from who he meets with.
We have a good idea who Tucker is, his motivations, what rings his bell. Most of his thoughts I disagree with, not all. First instance, he was paid by Murdoch, but for ratings, not rantings. Now he’s independent.
The term useful idiot was headlined. Useful/useless is itself a matter of opinion. So is idiocy.
I’ve been wondering what role the Russians may have played in the Trump-inspired propaganda barrage that led to the J6 insurrection at the Capitol. A recent book has a chapter that explores that, “Seeing Red” by Sarah Oates and Gordon Neil Ramsay (Oxford University Press), by focusing on RT and a similar Russian platform, Sputnik. The first author is a University of Maryland prof who publishes peer-reviewed research.
To put those findings in a nutshell,it seems that RT and Sputnik were enjoying the Trumpian show and exploiting it for their purposes. Of the more than 2000 articles on the two platforms over three months (Nov ’20 – Jan ’21) mentioning the election, most brought in the supposed electoral fraud (Table 5.1); and in most of those, the unsupported fraud claims were not challenged (Table 5.2). The primary way they did that was by quoting Trump himself (Table 5.3), taking provocative quotes from his public remarks on Twitter and elsewhere, and building articles around them.
As I interpret those findings, Trump was helping them to do their job, to sow divisions in the American public. So they returned the favor by picking up Trump statements and throwing them back out there, amplifying Trump’s efforts to sow chaos and division.
There are a number of figures at the core of J6 propaganda who are likewise close to RU outlets — starting with Tim Pool. The ties to RU are actually more substantive than just call-and-response.