'Useful idiots': Conservative hammers MAGA influencers for taking Kremlin cash

A conservative pundit Thursday laid into the "useful idiots" who prosecutors contend unwittingly accepted millions of dollars from Russian operatives to spread secret propaganda for a hostile foreign power.

Jim Geraghty, senior political correspondent for the conservative magazine National Review, lacerated conservative commentators Tim Pool and Benny Johnson for their apparent inclusion in Attorney General Merrick Garland's indictment of two Russian nationals on money laundering and Foreign Agents Restriction Act charges.

Although the indictment says that Pool and Johnson had no knowledge that the money they were receiving came from Russia, Geraghty says that doesn't get them off the hook from an ethical perspective.

"If someone whom you have never met and never heard of, and who has no online paper trail at all — someone who you cannot prove actually exists — offers to pay you a monthly fee of $400,000 to make one video a week, there are two ways to react" Geraghty wrote. "One is to emulate Steve Miller and take the money and run. The other is to wonder just who the hell would pay that much money for that little work, and to smell a rat."

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The scheme, as outlined in the Justice department indictment against Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, saw Tennessee-based Tenet Media, owned by right-wing influencer Lauren Chen and husband Liam Donovan, funneling cash into the company through a non-existent donor named “Eduard Grigoriann," prosecutors contend.

Neither Tenet Media founders nor its commentators have been charged with crimes.

But they earned scorn from the National Review contributor who noted only one commentator appears to have expressed curiosity about a mysterious backer with no web presence whatsoever.

"The Russians sent Commentator-1 an entirely fabricated profile with biographical information, claiming that 'Eduard Grigoriann' had graduated cum laude with a 'Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Management,' had worked in Belgium, Singapore, and France, had managed risk analysis and international relations, been an investment manager, formed his own private-equity firm . . . and he had somehow done all this without leaving any digital footprint anywhere," wrote Geraghty.

"Something about this did stink to Commentator-1; he said he was worried about the profile of 'Eduard Grigoriann' because 'Grigoriann' advocated for 'social justice' causes."

Geraghty also quotes at length commentary from Pool that he sarcastically dubs "subtle" and in which he finds a glaring factual error: The date of a pipeline explosion Pool claims triggered Russia's invasion but that occurred months after the conflict began.

"Ukraine is our enemy! Being funded by the Democrats!" Pool told viewers. "Ukraine is the greatest threat to this nation, and the world! We should rescind all funding and financing, pull out all military support, and we should apologize to Russia."

Pool Wednesday night took to X to claim full editorial control, make note of his apolitical content, call Russian President Vladimir Putin a "scumbag" and hurl a vulgar insult at the nation as a whole.

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Johnson said in another statement, “We are disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment, which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme."

Replied Geraghty, "Yeah, he should be disturbed."

Geraghty contends that the pair may well have been misled and does not call for any legal action. Mockery is another issue.

"Everything at Tenet Media must have seemed perfectly normal to them, because Europe is full of Belgian private-equity-fund managers who want to spend millions of dollars a year on light-work gigs for right-wing social-media influencers," Geraghty snarked. "Did you know the word 'gullible' is not in the dictionary?"

Why? For Geraghty, it's a question of freedom of speech.

"If you want to say that Vladimir Putin is swell, that the Russian regime is a defender of Christianity and traditional values, that U.S. aid to Ukraine’s defense is a waste, and that borscht is better than apple pie, well then, the Constitution protects your right to say those things," Geragthy concluded. "But when you start getting giant piles of Kremlin money to make those arguments . . . there really ought to be reputational consequences."