People Saying Stuff Isn’t Election Interference

Many conservatives have bought into a false narrative regarding Trump-friendly podcasters and alleged Russian election interference

Joe Biden's Department of Justice (DOJ) has indicted two Russians for allegedly funding a niche U.S. media company. 

In summary, the indictment tells the story as follows: Canadian YouTuber Lauren Chen runs a media company called Tenet Media. This company paid other YouTubers and podcasters, including Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, and Dave Rubin, for providing content on the Tenet channel. According to the indictment, Tenet Media was allegedly funded to the tune of millions of dollars by two Russian individuals with ties to the Russian government. Those Russian individuals have now been indicted for not registering under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). 

Unfortunately, rather than critically examining the details of this indictment—particularly its premise—many conservative commentators have accepted the misleading narrative that receiving foreign funding is somehow a hotbed of sin. It goes without saying that there has also been a huge meltdown over the indictment on the Democrat side, where many seem to believe that they have finally uncovered evidence of Trump-Russian collusion. In fact, the indictment does not mention Trump and even acknowledges that the stories allegedly published with Russian funding were merely a mixed bag of random narratives.

Rubin, Johnson, and Pool immediately issued statements distancing themselves from the entire affair, with Rubin even labeling the scheme as fraudulent. A litany of other purportedly conservative commentators, along with numerous random individuals on Twitter, have similarly gone along with the narrative that “the Russians” are villains who are interfering in sacred elections. Regrettably, there don’t seem to be many people, even in conservative circles, who have examined the premise of the indictment. Instead, almost everyone seems to have reflexively accepted the narrative of Russian election interference.

In reality, people saying stuff on the internet isn’t election interference. If that were the case, then virtually everything would qualify as election interference. Every statement made by ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the LA Times, and so on is election interference. After all, they all support Kamala Harris as the next president and shape their narratives accordingly. Moreover, it is not just these American outlets; the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) also has significant operations in the United States. There is little doubt that they, too, wish to see Harris as the next president. Under the DOJ’s expansive definition, that too is election interference. Meanwhile, DOJ happily ignores genuine election interference, including the incident in which five former CIA directors misused their positions and government security clearances to falsely attribute the Hunter laptop scandal to Russia.

In truth, the latest indictment is not a story about election interference but rather about the fact that Biden's DOJ has criminalized free speech to support Harris. That’s all there is to it.

So, what about the charges in the indictment, you might ask? Contrary to the prevailing narrative, Chen has not been charged with anything. The content creators who were platformed by Tenet Media have also not been charged with anything, although DOJ made sure that they would be identified, by citing their YouTube subscriber numbers. The only individuals who have been charged are two Russians who will likely never fall under the jurisdiction of the United States government. In other words, the entire scheme orchestrated by Biden's DOJ is predicated on the understanding that DOJ will never have to present any evidence in court. The fact that DOJ knew they would never have to present any evidence also manifests itself in the absurd legal foundation for the charges, specifically FARA.

Much has been said about FARA over the past eight years since it was revived from obscurity to target Trump associates, including General Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos. Nominally, FARA is a law that mandates individuals to register when they lobby the U.S. government. In practice, however, it functions as a political instrument aimed at specific individuals, particularly those associated with Trump or anyone who can be portrayed in a negative light in relation to him.

But it is even more troubling than that. In essence, FARA is a requirement to register with the government to exercise free speech. In other words, the government compels individuals to register with them to engage in activities they are already permitted to do. We have long maintained that FARA is unconstitutional. However, setting that aside, even if we assume that FARA serves a legitimate purpose, there is simply no justification for its application to Tenet Media. If we consider the ostensible purpose of requiring registration when lobbying the federal government, how does funding a media outlet that produces miscellaneous YouTube videos fit within that category? It does not. What does fall within that category, however, is Hunter Biden. We do not intend to rehash that entire saga here, as we have written about it extensively before. To cite just one example, when the corrupt Ukrainian energy company Burisma instructed Hunter Biden to put an end to the investigations into Burisma’s activities, Hunter immediately lobbied members of the Obama administration—including his father—to do just that. Lo and behold, within a few weeks of Hunter receiving Burisma's directive, Joe Biden was in Ukraine blackmailing the Ukrainian president to fire the prosecutor who was investigating Burisma. If FARA serves a legitimate objective, it is precisely that kind of lobbying. However, as we know, Hunter was never charged with any FARA offenses. Instead, we now find ourselves in a completely distorted situation where two foreign nationals have invested in a media company, and FARA has been misapplied to them solely because these individuals are Russian and can be used to tarnish Trump. 

To be clear, none of this serves as a defense of Lauren Chen or Tenet Media. It is distasteful and unethical that Chen appears to have accepted millions in foreign funding without disclosing this fact. Even worse, Chen openly criticized others for having mixed loyalties. However, let’s call a spade a spade: all of Washington, D.C., operates in a similar manner. Many media outlets and think tanks are financed with foreign money, and significant portions of academia receive funding from abroad, including substantial contributions from China. The Atlantic Council, a favored mouthpiece of the Democratic Party, received funding from Ukrainian sources, specifically from Hunter Biden's corrupt energy company, Burisma.

Sadly, the false narrative of election interference has corrupted not only the minds of Democrats and their supporters but also many conservative individuals. How can it be considered election interference when a podcaster expresses an opinion, especially, as in this case, when even DOJ admits that there was nothing untoward about the opinions expressed?

Of course, it would be ideal if we could identify the sources of funding whenever someone says something; however, this is practically impossible and often results in selective prosecution, as demonstrated by this case. It is far more prudent to assume that anyone who shares an opinion online is doing so with the intent of influencing perspectives for various reasons. That is not election interference. It is free speech. 

In fact, the concept of election interference was largely unheard of until Trump won the presidency in 2016. The term has since been weaponized, but only in relation to Trump. The entire purpose of bringing the concept of election interference out of obscurity was to assert that Trump only became president because of Russian interference. If Trump had not won, most of us would have never heard of the term.

One final point to consider is that the Harris campaign has been targeting one of the affected parties, Tim Pool, for the past week. Are we to believe this was merely a coincidence? Of course not. The Harris campaign was forewarned that Pool would be implicated in a narrative regarding Russian election interference. If we are discussing election interference, we need to look no further than DOJ colluding with the Harris campaign.