Mother Jones; X.com

The most striking thing about Lauren Chen, in hindsight, is how she managed to be everywhere. Until earlier this month, when the Department of Justice alleged that Chen, a Canadian influencer and self-described “Christian nationalist” with ties to the far right, had been secretly funded by Russia, she wasn’t much of a mainstream figure. But, through a remarkable number of platforms, podcasts, spinoffs, guest appearances, and side hustles, she was undoubtably prolific in conservative spaces.

Chen, now 30 years old, began her public career around 2016 and had since managed to build remarkably diverse ties across the right-wing spectrum, courting conservative media, white nationalists like Richard Spencer, likeminded podcasters, “paleo conservatives,” comedians turned aggrieved libertarians, and many others. She even dipped her toe into lifestyle influencing, peddling both ivermectin and a chintzy soap line she co-owned with her mother. She appeared as a commentator on The Blaze’s TV channel, as a “contributor” for conservative activist group Turning Point USA, and made appearances on Fox News, One America News, Newsmax, and in videos from The Daily Wire, Rebel Media, and PragerU. With a young daughter and a home in Nashville that she shared with husband Liam Donovan, who served as president of their video-making company, Tenet Media, it appeared to be paying off.

Chen’s career raises questions about mercenary personalities willing to amplify any message.

All of that came to an abrupt end earlier this month, when the Department of Justice unsealed an indictment alleging that Tenet was secretly funded by RT, the Russian state media company that functions as a Kremlin propaganda arm. The department said Chen had received money from RT’s parent company since 2021, billing them for videos that she posted without any kind of disclosure of that financial relationship on her personal YouTube channel. (Chen has not been personally indicted or accused of criminal wrongdoing; the filing only charges Konstantin Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, two RT employees, for their alleged role in the scheme.) A “reporter” for Tenet announced the following day that the company was shutting down.

The well-known conservative and far-right commentators who worked for Tenet—including Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and Lauren Southern—have all described themselves as unwitting victims in a scheme the DOJ alleges was meant to promote pro-Putin talking points and deepen partisan divisions within American society. But the indictment explains that at least one of them had suspicions. When one (who appears to be Rubin or Pool) began asking questions about the supposed French funder of the company, a French banker and philanthropist named “Eduard Grigoriann,” Chen sent that commentator a fake resume, which the indictment alleges was provided to her “by another fictional persona.” The resume claimed that Grigoriann had “held various positions in Brussels and France at a multinational bank,” and featured a stock photo of a model peering out a private jet’s window. That, apparently, was enough to quell concerns.

But while Chen and Donovan allegedly worked hard to conceal the source of the funding for Tenet from the commentators they were paying, they also continued building her brand outside of the company. She appeared at a Young Women’s Leadership Summit hosted by Turning Point USA earlier this year, on a borderline-ludicrous number of podcasts, and made a constant string of videos on YouTube and elsewhere,........

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