‘Overt Shilling’: Tucker Carlson’s Fawning Trip to a Moscow Grocery Store Was Even Too Much For Alleged Russian Propagandist’s Producer

A producer at Tennessee-based Tenet Media, the company at the center of an alleged covert Russian interference effort, hesitated to post MAGA influencer Tucker Carlson’s fawning trip to a Moscow supermarket in February because it felt “like overt shilling.”

The revelation comes in a Justice Department indictment, which was unsealed on Wednesday, that alleges Russian state-owned outlet RT paid $10 million to a company identified as Tenet Media, founded by Lauren Chen and her husband Liam Donovan in January 2022, to distribute content with concealed Russian messaging in a bid to interfere in the 2024 presidential election. Tenet’s website details how it manages the content for key US-based right-wing influencers including Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, and Tim Pool.

Two RT employees named in the indictment allegedly managed the operation, operating covertly using “fake personas” to work within the company and deliver instructions on content distribution as “outside editors.”

Amid the evidence provided, there is mention of “a video of a well-known U.S. political commentator visiting a grocery store in Russia” in February. February was the same month close Trump ally Carlson videoed himself walking around a Moscow supermarket heaping praise on its cheap prices when in the city to interview Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.

The indictment details how the video of Carlson’s grocery shopping trip was shared with Tenet producers for posting by one of the RT employees involved, Elena Afanasyeva.

The video, however, proved too much for the unnamed US-based producer at the company, who according to the DOJ wrote to one of the Tenet founders about their reluctance to share it: “They want me to post this” but “it just feels like overt shilling.”

The founder consulted their partner and replied with instructions to share the Carlson clip, with the producer finally agreeing to “put it out tomorrow.”

Read the indictment in full.

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