Right-wing social media accounts beloved by MAGA run by man who’s never visited US: report

A pair of pro-MAGA social media accounts promoted by prominent Republican politicians and that push election fraud conspiracy theories in the United States has been exposed as being run by an Eastern European man who has never visited the United States, and was accused of violating campaign finance laws.

According to Rolling Stone, the X accounts Defiant L's and Resist the Mainstream "both [offer] takes on American politics, often alleging corruption and election fraud by Democrats, to a combined over 2 million followers. Republican lawmakers like Mike Lee, Nancy Mace, Andy Biggs, Eli Crane, and Dan Crenshaw, along with major political figures like Elon Musk, share the accounts’ posts on X, some claiming that 'illegals' or undocumented immigrants are fraudulently voting in American elections." Musk went so far as to call Defiant L's "one of the best accounts on X."

But it turns out both of those accounts are run by a North Macedonian national named Rumen Naumovski, through a media company registered in Florida.

"Filings from a 2024 copyright lawsuit brought by a photojournalist who alleged Resist the Mainstream repeatedly stole his work show that Naumovski claims 100 percent ownership of the Florida company that operates the two X accounts, Raww Digital LLC," reported Jacqueline Sweet. Naumovski contributed over $3,000 to the 2022 congressional campaign of Paul Watkins, and those donations on the Federal Election Commission site "both list the St. Petersburg, Florida, registered agent’s office where Raww Digital Inc. is located and Raww Digital LLC as Naumovski’s employer."

Raww Digital "was first registered in 2021, with Naumovski as sole owner with an address in Veles, North Macedonia. A month later, an amendment with a new principal address was filed, at the registered agent’s office in St. Petersburg," said the report.

It is a federal crime for a foreign national to contribute to a U.S. election campaign. Watkins later returned those donations, and Naumovski, who in a Daily Wire op-ed stated "I’ve never set foot in the United States," says he did not know at the time his donation was illegal. According to experts, most illegal foreign donations are obscured through the use of straw donors, and it's very rare for a foreign national to actually list themselves as a donor with the FEC.