Trump’s Cyber Order Legalizes Influence Laundering—And That’s Just the Beginning

On June 6, 2025, the Trump administration signed a new directive: the Executive Order on Sustaining Select Efforts to Strengthen the Nation’s Cybersecurity. It replaces two earlier presidential orders, Obama’s 2015 framework and Biden’s January 2025 update, and claims to "streamline and refocus" the federal approach to digital threats.

What it actually does is hollow out key defenses just as the U.S. heads into another high-stakes election season.

Here’s what changed:

1. Cyber sanctions are now limited to foreign actors. Domestic individuals or platforms who knowingly spread foreign-backed disinformation are off the hook.

2. Biden’s digital ID initiative has been scrapped, meaning there will be no more mobile credentials or secure access to federal benefits.

3. Cybersecurity standards for vendors are rolled back. Mandatory compliance becomes voluntary guidance.

4. Oversight of AI and quantum-era threats is softened. Critical timelines and mandates are either slowed or removed.

We’ll cover each of these shifts in turn, but today, we’re starting with the most immediate and arguably the most dangerous piece —the section that effectively legalizes domestic influence laundering.

And yes, the irony here is rich. This comes from a president who has spent years crying fraud, casting doubt on U.S. elections, and demanding stronger protections against foreign interference. Yet this order quietly removes one of the few tools the federal government had to hold disinformation pipelines accountable, so long as the person spreading the message is American.

It’s not just a policy contradiction. It’s a signal.

---

The Influence-Laundering Loophole

The most consequential change in Trump’s new cybersecurity order is deceptively technical, restricting federal cyber sanctions to foreign actors only. That means if you're an American influencer, platform operator, or publisher—even one who knowingly collaborates with or cashes checks from a foreign propaganda network—you’re now out of reach.

This wasn’t always the case.

Under Biden’s Executive Order 14144, signed in January 2025, the federal government had explicit authority to sanction “any person” involved in cyber-enabled efforts to undermine U.S. elections or institutions. That language was deliberate. It meant the government could act against foreign threat actors as well as the domestic figures helping to amplify or distribute their messages, regardless of whether those Americans were paid, duped, or complicit.

Trump’s recent order revokes that authority. The updated language now limits sanctions exclusively to “foreign individuals and entities.” In other words, if a Russian troll farm wants to influence the 2026 election, they just need to route their money or messaging through a willing U.S. partner, and that partner is now legally protected.

Critics in the cybersecurity and national security world refer to this as influence laundering, the practice of sanitizing foreign propaganda by funneling it through domestic messengers who are either ideologically aligned, financially motivated, or simply indifferent to the source. It’s not new, and it’s not theoretical. It’s already happened.

The most well-documented case? Tenet Media.

---

Case Study: Tenet Media and the Paid Influencers

In 2024, the Justice Department unsealed indictments revealing a Russian-funded disinformation operation routed directly through U.S. soil. At the center was Tenet Media, a Tennessee-based company that received more than $10 million in concealed funding from Russian state media executives at RT (Russia Today).

The money was laundered through shell corporations, then used to pay a roster of right-wing U.S. influencers, some knowingly, others allegedly kept in the dark about the true source. Among the names identified in public reporting: Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin, Lauren Southern, Tayler Hansen, and Matt Christiansen. In some cases, these creators were receiving six-figure monthly salaries to promote Kremlin-aligned narratives on platforms like YouTube, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok.

The content they produced didn’t feature waving Russian flags or direct instructions from the Kremlin. It didn’t have to. The themes were consistent: immigration hysteria, anti-Ukraine sentiment, and conspiratorial attacks on American institutions, all tailored for a U.S. audience, wrapped in red-white-and-blue branding, and funded, silently, by a hostile foreign power.

Under Biden’s cybersecurity order, this hybrid threat model was exactly the kind of thing that could trigger a government response not just against the Russian operators, but also against the U.S.-based company that is laundering their message and the domestic figures profiting from it.

Under Trump’s new order, only the Russians are targetable.

Tenet Media’s U.S. network, shell companies, influencers, and distribution platforms would now be off-limits to federal cyber sanctions, even if they knowingly disseminated foreign-backed propaganda into American discourse.

This isn’t a loophole. It’s a blueprint.

---

Complicit? Stupid? Opportunistic?

Let’s take a moment to appreciate the Tenet Media situation, shall we?

Right-wing influencers were very active during the 2024 Presidential campaign, and their ability to reach essential demographics to secure a Trump victory was strategic and effective.

The influencers named all claim they were victims of the mean ole Russians. The owners of Tenet Media have implied that the money was suspicious, but they welcomed it.

While recognizing that this isn’t the brightest collection of American brainpower, it seems unlikely that none of those involved understood that their payout was tied to decidedly familiar rhetoric. Perhaps it simply fit their narrative, and they were happy to accept the funds. Maybe they merely saw a golden opportunity.

However, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that being offered a reward for parroting a specific message is, at best, sus, and at worst, a trap. Everyone wants to pay their bills, and if they can produce content that makes them happy and bring in the dough, great. Yet none questioned the motives, the risk, or the legality?

Whether complicit, moronic, or just grossly grifty, the fact is, sadly, it worked. They kept the money. They kept their platforms. They kept talking.

There were no legal, financial, or structural consequences, just a passing wave of headlines and denials.

---

Our Podcaster vs. the Protected Class

To understand just how lopsided this new cyber policy is, you don’t need to look far. This publication is connected to The Tony Michaels Podcast. He’s outspoken, progressive, and not exactly subtle about his views (*cough*). If Tony were to cite a report critical of U.S. foreign policy, say, one funded by a European human rights group, you can bet the backlash would be immediate.

He’d be labeled a “foreign asset” by the same right-wing media ecosystem that spends its days crying “Soros-funded” at anyone to the left of Mitch McConnell. The smear campaign wouldn’t stop at social media. It would find its way into right-wing podcasts, House hearing rooms, and Fox chyron crawls. That’s the environment we operate in.

Now contrast that with what Trump’s executive order just enabled.

A MAGA influencer can accept $100,000 routed through a shell company with Kremlin ties, repeat talking points attacking Ukraine, boosting authoritarian regimes, or undermining trust in U.S. elections, and under this new policy, they’re protected. They’re untouchable under federal cyber law. Their funders might face sanctions, but they won't.

The new standard is simple: if you speak truth to power and the funding source makes the right uncomfortable? You’re a suspect. If you carry water for foreign interests that align with the far-right agenda? You’re safe.

That’s not national security policy. That’s selective enforcement dressed up as deregulation.

---

Debunking the “Prevent Misuse” Excuse

The official justification for this change is that it’s about restraint. That’s right. The Trump administration is advocating for… restraint.

According to them, revoking the authority to sanction domestic actors is a safeguard against “politicized misuse.” The implication is that the federal government, under past presidents, was dangerously close to sanctioning political opponents or silencing dissent in the name of cybersecurity.

But there’s one problem: there is no evidence that it ever happened.

In the decade since Obama’s 2015 executive order first authorized cyber sanctions for election interference, and through the expanded Biden-era framework in 2025, there has not been a single known case in which those powers were used to penalize a U.S. citizen or content creator based on their political speech.

The record shows careful restraint, not overreach. These tools were used to target foreign state actors, hackers, troll farms, and shell companies, not domestic dissenters. If anything, the criticism from cybersecurity experts has been the opposite: that the U.S. has been too slow, too cautious, and too limited in its ability to confront hybrid threats that don’t respect borders. Thanks, Merrick Garland.

Let’s be honest. This isn’t about election integrity or partisan overreach. If this administration were truly worried about the abuse of government power, it wouldn’t be trying to jail journalists, surveil protestors, or purge civil servants for disloyalty. It would strengthen independent oversight, not gut enforcement mechanisms.

This isn’t about misuse. It’s about disuse by design. It’s about creating a safe harbor for the disinformation economy, so long as it flows through the right channels.

---

What This Signals for 2026 and Beyond

The 2026 midterms are already shaping up to be chaotic. The rise of AI-generated content, deepfake campaigns, and coordinated bot networks means disinformation is no longer something that arrives in bulk from Russian IP addresses. It’s frictionless, scalable, and designed to look homegrown. The battlefield isn’t just foreign soil anymore. It’s TikTok comment threads, Telegram channels, and your uncle’s Facebook page.

That’s what makes this executive order so dangerous. It sends a clear message:
If you’re an American helping foreign adversaries manipulate public discourse, you’re no longer the federal government’s problem.

Platforms will feel this too. Under Biden’s framework, the threat of federal sanctions, even indirectly, was a motivator. Platforms had to consider whether tolerating foreign-backed accounts and monetizing disinformation might lead to legal or regulatory repercussions. That incentive is now gone. With domestic amplifiers shielded and enforcement narrowed to only the most blatant foreign fingerprints, the path of least resistance just got a lot more lucrative.

This isn’t just deregulation. It’s a strategic withdrawal from the fight against influence operations at the exact moment those operations are becoming more embedded, more persuasive, and harder to trace.

It’s not accidental. The administration didn’t merely miss this threat. It’s removing the guardrails and calling it reform.

Heading into 2026, the people most protected by federal cyber policy won’t be voters, whistleblowers, or civic watchdogs. They’ll be the ones with the biggest platforms, the fewest scruples, and the right politics.

---

A Confession in Disguise

This executive order isn’t a cybersecurity reform. It’s a political insurance policy for allies who play dirty and for platforms that profit from looking the other way.

It revokes powers that were never misused. It shields people who were never punished. And it does so in the name of “preventing abuse” that never happened.

We already had a test case. Russian state money flowed through shell companies into the hands of American influencers who pushed Kremlin-aligned narratives during an election year. The Biden administration had the authority to act under EO 14144. It didn’t use it. The DOJ indicted the foreign funders, not the American content creators. It showed restraint.

So let’s be clear: This EO isn’t about preventing what Biden did. It’s about clearing the path for what Trump would have done, and what he now wants to protect others for doing in 2026.

It’s not a fix. It’s a confession. Tenet Media’s influencers helped Trump win, and protecting them from future prosecution is both a reward and a protection.

If we don't call it what it is, we’re going to watch the next wave of disinformation ride through our elections with the full protection of the federal government.

This executive order isn’t just a footnote in the federal register. It’s a live wire running straight through the 2026 election. We’ll be unpacking the rest of this EO in the days ahead, including the rollback of digital identity protections, cybersecurity standards, and AI oversight.

If you found this reporting useful, share it. If you have questions or stories related to digital disinformation, drop them in the comments. And if you want to help us continue covering stories like this, without relying on foreign shell companies or Soros funding, you can support this publication for free or as a paid subscriber.

Bibliography:

• Trump, Donald J. “Sustaining Select Efforts to Strengthen the Nation’s Cybersecurity and Amending Executive Order 13694 and Executive Order 14144.” Executive Order, June 6, 2025. The White House.

• Fein, Ashden, Susan B. Cassidy, Robert Huffman, Micaela McMurrough, Caleb Skeath, Joshua Williams, Ryan Burnette, Shayan Karbassi, Sierra Stubbs, and Kristen Chapman. “White House Issues New Cybersecurity Executive Order.” Inside Privacy, June 9, 2025.

• Politico. “Trump Executive Order Takes Steps to Protect Domestic Hackers from Blowback.” June 6, 2025.

• Geek News Central. “President Trump Signs an EO Scraping or Revising Several Biden- and Obama-Era Cybersecurity Programs.” June 7, 2025.

• Federal News Network. “Trump Revokes Digital Identity Actions in New Cyber Executive Order.” June 6, 2025.

• Biden, Joseph R. “Strengthening and Promoting Innovation in the Nation’s Cybersecurity.” Executive Order 14144, January 16, 2025. Federal Register 90 FR 6755.

• Obama, Barack. Executive Order 13694, April 1, 2015. (Referenced in Trump EO amendments.)

• Department of Justice. “Two RT Employees Indicted for Covertly Funding and Directing U.S. Company.” September 4, 2024.

• AP News. “Right-wing influencers were duped to work for Russian operation.” September 5, 2024.

• CBS News. “U.S. Says Russia Funded Media Company That Paid Right‑Wing Influencers.” September 5, 2024.

• The Washington Post. Will Sommer, “Inside Tenet Media, the Pro‑Trump ‘Supergroup’ Allegedly Funded by Russia.” Updated September 5, 2024.

• NPR. “How Russia Covertly Hired U.S. Influencers to Create Videos.” September 5, 2024.

• The Atlantic. “YouTubers Are Almost Too Easy to Dupe.” September 2024.

• New York Magazine. “Benny Johnson, Tim Pool Say They're Victims in Russia Media Scheme.” September 6, 2024.

• CJR. “The Tenet Media Incident.” Columbia Journalism Review, September 12, 2024.

• Kurek, Laura, Kevin Zheng, Eric Gilbert, and Ceren Budak. “Outsourcing an Information Operation: A Complete Dataset of Tenet Media’s Podcasts on Rumble.” arXiv preprint, March 25, 2025.