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AN 12 25

President Donald Trump's administration recently intervened to help a disgraced far-right YouTube commentator get back into the United States — even though her channel was exposed as a Russian media front.

The Bulwark's Will Sommer reported Monday that Canadian citizen Lauren Chen of Tenet Media reportedly reentered the U.S. over the Christmas holiday, even though her work visa was suspended in 2024 amid an FBI investigation into her YouTube channel. Tenet Media's funders had been linked to the Russia-funded RT network, and were accused of funneling approximately $10 million to Chen's company, which also housed prominent pro-Trump pundits like Tim Pool, Benny Johnson and Dave Rubin.

Sommer noticed a post to Chen's Instagram account on Christmas Day, where she celebrated that she was able to return to Nashville, Tennessee with her husband, Liam Donovan after securing a visa from Trump's State Department. Chen specifically thanked "Joe Rittenhouse at the State Department," along with "the new leadership at the FBI, and the administration for their help making this possible, and for everything they do to keep America safe."

Rittenhouse responded to Chen's post with one of his own, writing on X that he was "happy to help correct the wrongs of the past administration." Sommer reported that Rittenhouse is apparently a fan of far-right YouTubers, and in August posted a photo of his feet on his desk while watching a video by British YouTuber Sargon of Akkad (whose real name is Carl Benjamin).

In September of 2024, the FBI charged RT employees Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva for conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland stated that Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva sought to "create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging."

"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," he added.

Despite the Tenet Media scandal, its personalities have continued to see their platforms flourish. Dave Rubin's YouTube channel has 3.1 million subscribers, Tim Pool has more than 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube and Benny Johnson's channel on Rumble (a platform similar to YouTube popular among the far right) has more than 481,000 followers. Pool maintained at the time that he was tricked into providing content for a media startup and that Russian Vladimir Putin was "a scumbag."

:{:{Click here to read Sommer's full report in The Bulwark.}:

RIGHT-WING MEDIA PERSONALITY Lauren Chen left the United States in July in disgrace. Her Tenet Media YouTube channel, which positioned itself as a sort of MAGA supergroup bringing together such popular commentators as Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, and Dave Rubin, had been exposed in 2024 by the FBI as a Russian media front illicitly taking money from pro-Putin propaganda outlet RT.

The September 2024 indictment from the Southern District of New York targeted Tenet’s FARA-skirting Russian funders, not Chen or her husband, Liam Donovan. But the Canadian couple were clearly described in the indictment as allegedly scheming with RT employees to direct $10 million to Tenet and even create a fictional persona to mislead one pundit about the source of the funding.

In the wake of the indictment, Chen lost her work visa and was forced to leave the country. She also vanished from social media. It seemed unlikely she would return to the United States anytime soon.

But this holiday season, Chen and her husband were back in Nashville, where she lived while running Tenet. She broke the news herself, by announcing on Instagram and X on Christmas Day that she could now return to the United States, and specifically thanking the State Department’s Joe Rittenhouse, a senior adviser on consular affairs and former Trump presidential campaign worker, for his help.

“The biggest thank you to Joe Rittenhouse at the State Department for moving mountains to ensure we were able to return in time for the holidays!” Chen wrote on Instagram.

Chen also thanked Customs and Border Patrol, the FBI, and “the administration” broadly.

“Also the utmost gratitude to CBP, the new leadership at the FBI, and the administration for their help making this possible, and for everything they do to keep America safe,” she wrote.

Rittenhouse himself confirmed the administration’s effort to help Tenet Media’s founders return to America in a post on X, wishing Chen a “merry Christmas.”

“This Christmas I’m so happy to help correct the wrongs of the past administration,” he wrote. “Being able to bring Lauren and her family back for Christmas would not be possible without new Leadership at the Whitehouse, FBI, CBP, and State Department.”

Rittenhouse does appear to be a fan of right-wing media. In August, he posted a picture with his feet up on a desk in what appeared to be a government office building, watching a video from right-wing British YouTuber “Sargon of Akkad.”

THE IDEA THAT THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION would assist the foreign founders of an illegally funded media outlet aimed at reaching American audiences with Russian propaganda might seem outlandish. Indeed, it might be the first time the administration has offered assistance to someone from Canada.

But the administration has not shied away from throwing bones to right wing media figures—prioritizing them at White House functions and elevating them at the briefings. As for Russian interests, the president has long been outwardly comfortable associating with them.

The FBI declined to comment. CBP, the White House, and the State Department didn’t respond to requests for comment. Neither did Chen or Rittenhouse.

According to court records, the federal case against Tenet’s funders is still open. But with the Russian operators who allegedly facilitated the money-laundering scheme still at large, the investigation hasn’t gone anywhere in the year since the indictments were filed.

The right-wing commentators who posted on Tenet have maintained their innocence about the nature of the operation, with Johnson, Rubin, and Pool all claiming that they were “victims” of Chen’s company—duped, as it were, by the Russian government into taking tens of thousands of dollars for making a single YouTube video.

By and large, they’ve faced minimal professional repercussions. In fact, their influence and their audiences are far larger now than when Tenet was exposed. The one person who did face some fallout was Chen, whose visa situation with the American government was dire. This past September, she complained that the Biden administration had “nuked my visa” after Tenet’s funding was exposed. In a July statement that marked her return to social media, Chen complained that she couldn’t return to the United States.

“Because my American visa was contingent upon our company, we had no choice but to leave our home and children’s place of birth,” she wrote. “We are doing everything in our power to get a new visa and return home.”

The Trump administration’s intervention on Chen’s behalf comes as it has moved to dramatically restrict visa rules more broadly—even denying visas to activists opposed to disinformation. Rittenhouse himself has briefed the media on the administration’s student-visa revocations.

From my point of view, Trump’s help for Chen and her husband also hurts the realinjured parties: Johnson, Rubin, and Pool. After all, with Chen and her husband on the loose in America once again, is any pro-Trump media star safe from being targeted with the next Tenet-like con?

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ggl 12 25

[### Joe Rittenhouse (@Overlord26) / Posts / X

X · Overlord26

890+ followers](https://x.com/Overlord26)

The biggest thank you to Joe Rittenhouse @Overlord26 at the State Department for moving mountains to ensure we were able to return in time for the holidays Read more

[### Joe Rittenhouse - United States | Professional Profile

LinkedIn · Joe Rittenhouse

880+ followers](https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-w-rittenhouse)

Location: United States · 500+ connections on LinkedIn. View Joe Rittenhouse's profile on LinkedIn, a professional community of 1 billion members.

[### Trump Brings Putin's Booted Propaganda Goon Back to U.S.

The Daily Beast

https://www.thedailybeast.com › trump-brings-putins-bo...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-brings-putins-booted-propaganda-goon-lauren-chen-back-to-us/)

6 hours ago — ... State Department senior adviser Joe Rittenhouse. She credited Rittenhouse with “moving mountains to ensure we were able to return in time ...Read more

...Last week, Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio barred five European campaigners and watchdog leaders from entering the country under a new “free speech” visa policy.

It also raises questions about Trump’s friendly behavior toward Russia and its president Vladimir Putin. Even in the past month, Trump—who in 2022 called Putin a “genius”—has described Putin as being “very generous” about Ukraine’s future in a call they had about the war there, prompting visible disbelief from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Trump Gets Beauty Salon Owner to Decide Who to Ban From U.S.EYEBROW RAISING

Tom Latchem

Trump’s State Department has increasingly been populated with loyalists in roles that control who gets a visa and who gets turned away. Rittenhouse, for instance, is a former actor who became a Trump presidential campaign worker. Over Christmas, it also emerged that Trump had elevated Project 2025 contributor Mora Namdar to run the consular bureau overseeing visa approvals and revocations.

[### Right-Wing Influencers Rejoice: Trump Admin Gives a Visa ...

Gizmodo

https://gizmodo.com › right-wing-influencers-rejoice-tr...](https://gizmodo.com/right-wing-influencers-rejoice-trump-admin-gives-a-visa-to-accused-russian-propagandist-2000704325)

1 hour ago — In a post on X on Christmas Day, Chen announced that she and her husband were in Nashville and thanked the State Department's Joe Rittenhouse, a ...Read more

As season one of the Trump administration reboot comes to a close, they are already rooting around deep in the bag of fringe characters. According to a report from The Bulwark, D-list conservative media personality and alleged Russian propagandist Lauren Chen appears to have been granted a visa by Trump’s State Department and is once again back in the United States.

IFrame Content

In a post on X on Christmas Day, Chen announced that she and her husband were in Nashville and thanked the State Department’s Joe Rittenhouse, a senior adviser on consular affairs, for making it happen, saying he helped in “moving mountains to ensure we were able to return in time for the holidays!” Chen also offered appreciation for the “CBP, the new leadership at the FBI, and the administration” for helping her return.

The whole situation is a bit of a “Who’s Who” of “Who is that again?” So, as a refresher: Lauren Chen is a long-time conservative media commentator who made it “big” playing footsie with the alt-right during the first Trump administration while posting as the “Roaming Millennial.” She got attention for interviewing white supremacist Richard Spencer shortly before his involvement in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in the death of a counter-protester and injuries to many others after a neo-Nazi drove their car into a crowd of people.

After a series of unsuccessful independent media ventures, she settled into the right-wing ecosystem, becoming a contributor to Glenn Beck’s The Blaze and Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA. But in 2022, she and her husband, Liam Donovan, launched her most notable venture, Tenent Media.

According to an indictment filed by the Justice Department in 2024, Tenet Media received millions of dollars from the Kremlin-run media company RT, which Chen previously contributed to, and funneled that money to conservative commentators in an effort to disseminate pro-Russian content. Recipients of those funds, who supposedly were unaware that they came from Russian interests, included online influencers Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, and David Rubin, all of whom allegedly were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by Tenent Media for their content.

While the Justice Department’s case against the Russian funders of Tenet Media is still open, per The Bulwark, Chen never really faced legal consequences—though she did have her visa “nuked” by the Biden administration and was, at least for a time, unable to return to the United States.

That appears to have changed thanks to another Trump Show backbencher, Joe Rittenhouse. According to The Daily Beast, Rittenhouse is a former actor turned Trump campaign booster who was rewarded with a role in the administration and has apparently used his position to get Chen back into the country. Rittenhouse appears deeply engaged in the Online Right, based on the fact that he posted a picture of himself in a federal office watching a Sargon of Akkad video. So it probably shouldn’t be a surprise that he’d know and want to help out Chen. The State Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Gizmodo; we’ll update this post when we receive a reply.

Fittingly, Rittenhouse also previously briefed the press on the Trump administration’s decision to revoke the visas of students who participated in the anti-genocide protests that took place on college campuses earlier this year. So if you’re keeping score at home: Protesting a genocide gets you kicked out of this country, but accepting money from the Kremlin and distributing it to create propaganda gets you an expedited invite in. As Rittenhouse says, that’s just what “American First Consular Affairs looks like.”

ref

The Trump administration has revoked 85,000 visas of all categories since January, more than double the number pulled last year, according to a State Department official.

The high number of revocations, which includes more than 8,000 student visas, come amid a broader pushby the Trump administration to both target immigrants within the United States and limit who can come to the country.

The department official said Monday that offenses like driving under the influence, assaults, and theft accounted for “almost half of the revocations in the past year.” They did not detail the reasons for the other half of the visa revocations this year, however, the department has previously also pointedto visa expirations and “support for terrorism” in justifying pulling visas.

The revocations have raised some First Amendment concerns, as administration officials have particularly targeted international students active in protests against the war in Gaza, accusing those students of antisemitism and of supporting terrorism, and the State Department said in October it had revoked some visas from those who allegedly “celebrated” Charlie Kirk’s murder.

The latest numbers come after a State Department official said in August that the agency planned to implement a policy of “continuous vetting” of “all of the more than 55 million foreigners” who held valid US visas.

[Related article

Inside the Trump administration’s sweeping crackdown on legal immigration](https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/24/politics/legal-immigration-student-visas-h1b)

“The State Department revokes visas any time there are indications of a potential ineligibility, which includes things like any indicators of overstays, criminal activity, threats to public safety, engaging in any form of terrorist activity, or providing support to a terrorist organization,” that official said at the time.

“We review all available information as part of our vetting, including law enforcement or immigration records or any other information that comes to light after visa issuance indicating a potential ineligibility,” they said.

Under President Donald Trump’s second term, the State Department significantly broadened the criteria under which visa applicants can be scrutinized or denied a visa.

The State Department, under the terms outlined in a diplomatic cable last week, can deny visas to those who worked on things like content moderation and fact-checking as part of an “enhanced vetting” of H1-B visas for highly skilled workers, according toReuters. It comes after Secretary of State Marco Rubio in May announced a policy to restrict visas from foreign nationals who “censor” Americans.

In June, the State Department told its embassies and consulates they must vet student visa applicants for “hostile attitudes towards our citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles.” Under the new guidance, applicants are asked to set their social media profiles to public as part of the vetting, and a diplomatic cable noted that “limited access to, or visibility of, online presence could be construed as an effort to evade or hide certain activity.”

Rubio has vigorously defended the Trump administration’s policies on student visa revocation.

In addition to the State Department’s visa denial and revocation policies, the Department of Homeland Security has carried out aggressive detention and deportation campaigns. The administration has essentially frozen refugee resettlement and said it will review all refugees who entered under the Biden administration.

Earlier this year, the administration restricted travel to the US from 19 countries. CNN reported last week that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is recommending the list increase to between 30 to 32 countries, according to a source, in the wake of a shooting in Washington, DC, of two National Guard members. The suspect in that shooting is an Afghan national.

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:Joe Rittenhouse}:

X · Overlord26

3 months ago](https://x.com/Overlord26/status/1964711018569076996)

State Department, Consular Affairs here. Unless you know something I don't, what visas were they on exactly that permitted working in the USRead more

[### Who Is Lauren Chen? Tenet Media Founder Returns to US ...

Times Now

https://www.timesnownews.com › ... › Us › Us News](https://www.timesnownews.com/world/us/us-news/who-is-lauren-chen-tenet-media-founder-returns-to-us-after-trump-administration-visa-intervention-article-153372792)

57 minutes ago — State Department adviser Joe Rittenhouse confirmed helping "correct past wrongs" crediting Trump FBI CBP changes. Chen posted Instagram thanks: ...Read more

[### Trump flings open the door for founder of firm that funneled ...

Raw Story

https://www.rawstory.com › trump-2674836009](https://www.rawstory.com/trump-2674836009/)

18 hours ago — "'The biggest thank you to Joe Rittenhouse at the State Department for moving mountains to ensure we were able to return in time for the ...Read more

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