A Chicago high school dropout who became an alt-right media superstar and once interviewed former President Donald Trump on his podcast was apparently paid $100,000 per episode by a covert propaganda campaign funded by Russia, according to a new federal indictment.
Tim Pool, 39, isn’t charged with wrongdoing in the New York-based indictment, which targeted two Russian nationals, and he says on his X platform that he was a victim of the alleged scheme.
“Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims,” Pool wrote Wednesday night.
He couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday.
Pool, the son of a former Chicago firefighter, grew up on the South Side near Midway Airport. He hosts the Culture War Podcast, which has more than 1.3 million YouTube subscribers.
During an interview in May 2023, Pool said he dropped out of high school to focus on computer programming, skateboarding and making music.
Pool initially gained notoriety by live-streaming the Occupy Wall Street protests and later worked as a reporter for Vice, the alternative media outlet that had a meteoric rise but ultimately fell into bankruptcy.
As a podcaster, Pool has secured interviews with Trump and artist Kanye West, the mercurial Chicago native now known as Ye, who made headlines when he stormed out on Pool during a well-publicized breakdown in 2022.
The podcast is licensed by conservative Tennessee-based Tenet Media, which licenses the podcast. The live broadcast is on Tenet’s YouTube channel.
On his X page, Pool, who’s now based in West Virginia, said he maintains full editorial control of his show, whose contents “are often apolitical. Examples include discussing spirituality, dating and video games.” He said Russia President Vladimir Putin “is a scumbag.”
On Wednesday, the Justice Department unsealed an indictment accusing two Russians, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, 31, and Elena Afanasyeva, 27, of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act and conspiracy to commit money laundering. They’re employees of Russia Today, a state-run media outlet funded by Russia, according to the indictment.
“The Justice Department has charged two employees of RT, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, in a $10 million scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said. “The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts, and our investigation into this matter remains ongoing.”
Russia Today is accused of sending $9.7 million over the last year to a Tennessee-based company. The indictment mentioned the company’s slogan, “a network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues,” which is Tenet’s motto. But it’s referred to only as Company 1 in the indictment.
The Russians, using covert identities, directed Tenet to post hundreds of videos, according to the indictment.
For example, after the March 22 terrorist attack on a music venue in Moscow, Afanasyeva asked one of Tenet’s founders to blame Ukraine and the United States for the attack, writing: “I think we can focus on the Ukraine/U.S. angle. … [T]he mainstream media spread fake news that ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack yet ISIS itself never made such statements,” the indictment said.
Pool is apparently referred to as “Commentator 2” in the indictment, which says he agreed to license his podcasts to Tenet for $100,000 each. The videos were hosted by Pool and live-streamed by Tenet.
Pool and another commentator were under the false impression that an international banker named Eduard Grigoriann was behind the funding, but Grigoriann was actually a fictional character invented by the Russians, the indictment said.
The indictment doesn’t spell out exactly how much Pool was paid in total for his content.
The indictment highlights concerns by the U.S. government and technology watchdog groups that Russia and other countries are taking an active role in trying to influence American thinking ahead of November’s presidential election.