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Notes -
I guess $10 million sounds like a lot, but it's not really in this context, especially if they were spending $100,000-$400,000 per month on multiple influencers for a handful of hours content that didn't really include anything in the way of Kremlin propaganda. It sounds like the Russian agents were none too happy with how things were going. Is that because Chen was just bad at her job or did she just not care? Of course, it gave those agents blackmail power over Chen and perhaps others, but what good is that? These are quite marginalized figures who have little or no instituational knowledge or pull to do anything for Russia. It all seems so absurd. But you're right, governments piss away money like this all the time.
Of course, I presume there are similar shenanigans going on elsewhere, but the DoJ likely has less interest in exposing them. These influencers are politically safe targets, but that just makes the Russians even more incompetent.
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