Maaaybe…. The indictment of Russian agents bankrolling a bunch of very heavy hitting right wing “influencers” says those influencer had no idea what was going on and they all insist they were “victims” (who were being paid as much as 400k a month to make some videos.) The Daily Beast story summarizes it as well as anyone: Several right-wing American influencers described themselves as “victims” after the Justice Department accused a company they worked with of being a front for a covert Russian influence campaign. Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, and Dave Rubin all released statements Wednesday after prosecutors claimed a Tennessee-based firm—identified in multiple media reports as Tenet Media—was secretly funded and directed by Russian state media employees. The company, which lists Pool, Johnson, Rubin, and others as its “talent,” published English-language videos online with content that is “often consistent” with the Kremlin’s aim of “amplifying U.S. domestic divisions” to undermine American opposition to Russian interests like its war in Ukraine, prosecutors say. An indictment alleges that two employees of RT—the Russian state-controlled broadcaster formerly known as Russia Today—funneled almost $10 million to the content creation company, which in turn pumped out content sympathetic to Moscow’s viewpoints. The influencers aren’t accused of wrongdoing and didn’t realize they were working for the covert operation, prosecutors say, with the indictment claiming that some were misled about how the company was funded. That’s a point several of Tenet’s influencers were eager to underscore as they came under scrutiny for their association with the company, which was allegedly paying huge…