Which US influencers were paid by the Russian government for political messaging in 2016 and 2017?

1. Who the indictment names as paid influencers

Multiple mainstream outlets covering the indictment identify six conservative internet personalities linked to the Tennessee company, repeatedly naming Tim Pool, Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson among those connected to the venture ^{[4] [1] [5]}, and press summaries say the firm signed high‑value contracts with prominent right‑wing commentators ^[6]. Reuters’ reporting on the court filings also describes the channel by which funds flowed — from Russian marketing agencies to U.S. media owners Lauren Chen and Liam Donovan, who then paid American conservative influencers to produce videos and posts ^[2].

2. How much money and how it was routed

Prosecutors allege roughly $10 million was routed from Russian state‑media employees through shell entities to a Tennessee media company that supplied most of its budget from those funds, and that two unnamed influencers negotiated extremely large fees — one at about $2 million a year and others at approximately $100,000 per video — figures reported across outlets and described in court filings and expert commentary ^{[3] [7] [8]}. U.S. officials say the money came from RT employees and was laundered through foreign shell entities before reaching the American company ^{[5] [9]}.

3. What reporting says about 2016–2017 specifically

Contemporary reporting and the recent indictments repeatedly reference Russian interference during the 2016 election — noting hacking and covert social‑media campaigns by Russian intelligence and networks — but the materials provided do not identify named U.S. influencers whom the Russian government paid during 2016 or 2017 in the same way the 2024‑era indictment alleges ^{[4] [1]}. DOJ and news coverage frame the newly charged operation as part of a longer pattern of Russian influence efforts dating back to 2016, yet the specific allegation of direct payments to the named influencers in the present indictment concerns a later scheme, not documented payments from 2016–2017 in the sources supplied ^{[2] [10]}.

4. How the influencers and officials characterize the relationship

The DOJ indictment and major outlets report that federal prosecutors do not allege the influencers knowingly worked for the Russian government and that some influencers say they were deceived about the funding source; U.S. officials portrayed the personalities as “unwitting” recipients and emphasized the company never disclosed ties to RT or the Russian government ^{[5] [9] [11]}. That contrast — large payments on one side, claimed lack of knowledge on the other — is central to the public narrative and to the charges brought against Russian state actors and intermediaries rather than the U.S. commentators ^{[1] [12]}.

5. Motive, context and caveats

Prosecutors and intelligence officials say the operation aimed to amplify pro‑Russian narratives, weaken U.S. support for Ukraine and deepen domestic divisions, and they cite internal Russian marketing presentations and the use of influencers as part of a broader “Doppelganger” and social‑media playbook ^{[10] [13] [2]}. Yet the sources provided do not prove malintent by every paid commentator, nor do they trace every dollar back to Moscow for the 2016–2017 period; those are gaps in the public reporting that matter for assigning legal or moral culpability ^{[4] [1]}.

6. Bottom line

Available indictment reporting clearly links several named U.S. right‑wing influencers — most prominently Tim Pool, Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson — to a Tennessee media company prosecutors say was secretly funded by Russian state‑media employees and that paid influencers large sums to produce content ^{[4] [1] [2]}, but the reporting supplied does not document specific Russian government payments to named U.S. influencers during 2016–2017; instead, it places the detailed money‑flow allegations in a later operation that prosecutors say continues patterns of Russian influence dating back to 2016 ^{[1] [10]}.