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Right-wing social media influencers and online platforms are scrambling after the Department of Justice revealed several of their own were allegedly enlisted into a Russian manipulation scheme to sway the presidential election in Donald Trump's favor.
An author page for Lauren Chen is no longer available on the webpage for far-right activist Charlie Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA. Along with her husband, Chen co-founded a company, Tenet Media, that’s at the heart of the DOJ indictment. YouTube took down several Tenet Media channels and one field reporter said the outlet has "ended" after the feds alleged Chen and her husband knowingly used it to funnel millions of dollars from Russian officials to right-wing content creators who were paid to push far-right and pro-Kremlin talking points.
Chen and her husband weren’t charged as part of the indictment, leading people such as MSNBC contributor Andrew Weissman to suggest she may be cooperating with the feds. Conservative news site The Blaze, which previously employed Chen, has fired her following the indictment. And whatever the reason, Turning Point USA, which has promoted many of the influencers employed by Tenet Media — such as Benny Johnson, Tim Pool and David Rubin — seems to have determined one course of action at this point is to paper over its links to Chen in the wake of her appearance in the DOJ report. Some of her articles are still accessible on TPUSA's website, however. Johnson, Pool and Rubin all say they did not know about the Russian influence plot.
Pool said on his podcast that he’s been contacted by federal authorities and plans to provide a voluntary interview. If that's true — and Pool is not known for being a straight shooter — his apparent willingness to sit for an interview probably doesn’t sit well with fellow Trump-supporting podcaster Dan Bongino, who used a portion of his podcast last week to warn fellow right-wing influencers about "people working with the feds,” claiming they and other right-wing influencers could be “ensnared” in the DOJ’s investigation.
Other MAGA influencers seem a bit nervous about what else may be coming down the pipe. One wonders if that has anything to do with an unsealed affidavit released last week alleging a Kremlin-backed agency had nearly 600 U.S.-based influencers in its sights as it waged an online-based election manipulation operation in the United States. One can only imagine what the group chats are looking like in MAGA world these days.