Federal Indictment Reveals It's Remarkably Easy To Fool Right-Wing Media

How easy is it to fool high-profile right-wing media personalities into joining an alleged Russian influence operation?

A federal indictment this week revealed the answer.

The 32-page charging document alleged that two employees of the Russian media company RT, formerly known as Russia Today, undertook a conspiracy to launder money and violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Using nearly $10 million allegedly laundered through shell companies, the pair — Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva — worked “to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said Wednesday.

Key to the operation were a handful of fake personas the Russians allegedly used to appear legitimate to unwitting on-air personalities. The indictment dubbed their media venture “U.S. Company-1,” and it has been widely identified as the right-wing startup Tenet Media, which shuttered Thursday.

The main character of the Russians’ narrative was “Eduard Grigoriann,” a fictitious globe-trotting businessman and banker. He had no digital footprint, nor any public record of his existence, the indictment found.

He was allegedly represented by various “personas” who pretended to be his employees ― all of whom in fact were the same person, though the indictment did not identify this person by name.

Tenet’s founders, Lauren Chen and her husband, Liam Donovan ― referred to as “Founder-1” and “Founder-2″ in the indictment ― repeatedly referred to Grigoriann during communications with Tenet’s media personalities, describing him as an investor and the source of the company’s money, according to prosecutors.

Chen did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s questions Friday, nor did