Oh, boy. Here we go again. The Department of Justice unsealed an indictment this week against a couple of Russians who have allegedly been funneling money into a company that manages several conservative social media commentators.

The two Russians, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, aren’t even in the United States, but by golly, the DOJ says they’ve been spreading money around to disinform Americans. What makes the story slightly interesting (and also very suspect) is that the company the Russians were allegedly funneling money to employs people like Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin, and Lauren Southern—all pro-Trump media personalities.

The two Russians (I won’t be typing those names out again), who are never going to set foot in the United States, have been charged with money laundering and violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The Russians used to work at Russia Today (RT) before the news outlet was censored out of existence by the Biden regime after the Ukraine war broke out.

The Russians supposedly funneled $10 million through a series of shell companies to a Tennessee-based company called Tenet Media. Tenet is owned by the rabidly anti-Trump Lauren Chen and her husband Liam Donovon. The company finances the conservative talkers above and their social media videos on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and other channels.

According to the indictment, “The subject matter and content of the videos are often consistent with the Government of Russia’s interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions in order to weaken U.S. opposition to core Government of Russia interests, such as its ongoing war in Ukraine.”

The mainstream media is running with this story to make it sound as if the pro-Trump figures like Pool, Johnson, Rubin, and Southern were taking cash from Russia in order to spout pro-Russian, anti-Ukraine propaganda. The indictment says that’s not the case, though. It makes clear that Tim Pool and the others were victims who were deceived by Lauren Chen and her husband about where the money was coming from.

Pool and the others have all issued statements to the effect that they were victims and had no idea this was going on. They’ve all said they won’t be issuing any further statements on the matter, probably on the advice of their attorneys.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the careers of these individuals, now that they won’t have the cash from Tenet Media propping them up.

Former Trump advisor Sebastian Gorka announced Thursday that Tenet had approached him a few years ago and tried to lure him into managing the company and the talent. He said that the money behind the offer was great, but he asked Lauren Chen where it was coming from. He couldn’t get a straight answer from them.

They finally gave him the name of a person that sounded made up. Gorka couldn’t find any evidence that this person existed. The whole thing was fishy, so he walked away from the deal.

A lot of conservatives on social media are jumping on this story and calling Tim Pool and the others “grifters.” I’m not sure that’s the right take on this story.

Back in the 1990s, when I was first starting out at ABC News, my arch-nemesis was this dork who worked at NBC News. We hated each other. One day I had to jump out of the shower and rush to a press conference. My hair was still wet as I got there and started setting up.

My arch-nemesis asked in a loud, obnoxious voice, “What, did you just get out of the shower?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “Your wife says ‘Hi.’”

Apparently, I touched a nerve. He punched me in front of a gaggle of other reporters and a US congressman. We ended up rolling around on the concrete until people pulled us apart.

My point is not that my big mouth gets me into trouble from time to time, although that’s true. My point is that if the Department of Justice were to indict my worst enemy tomorrow for some horrible crime, I would give that guy the benefit of the doubt over Merrick Garland and the DOJ.

This is the same DOJ that is still arresting more than a dozen January 6 protesters every week to this day. This is the same DOJ that indicted President Trump on fake charges multiple times. Now here we are again just a few weeks before an election, and the DOJ is telling us that Russian disinformation is tricking all of us into voting for Trump.

Lauren Chen hates Donald Trump. That’s fine. She’s pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Most of us couldn’t pick her out of a lineup because she’s so irrelevant. I’m still going to give her the benefit of the doubt of this corrupt DOJ, at least until we know more.

One more thing to note: Just a few days before these Russian indictments were suddenly announced, Tim Pool filed a lawsuit against the Kamala Harris campaign for defamation.