Lauren Chen

They seized all of our electronics.

It was a pretty traumatic moment, honestly, for the weeks and weeks after any time I heard a door knock, I was on edge.

I was thinking to myself, gosh, does that sound federal?

But what followed after they left, and we were kind of left in a daze because they served us a search warrant, but we didn't really know

What was going on kind of in the hours that followed, we saw that Merrick Garland himself, so the AG himself, gave a press release on a case related to us, which doesn't usually happen.

A case has to be pretty high profile for the AG to speak on it personally in a press conference.

But essentially, the Attorney General was implying that

Our content on Tenet Media was propaganda, was meant to sow division in the United States.

And because we were in that election season, this is September 2024, so just a couple of months before the general election, also implying that, hey, this is all

This is all an operation to drum up support for Donald Trump, was the narrative.

And my husband and I were very confused.

The FBI had assured us that there was no charges against us.

We weren't being charged with anything, yet the media storm that followed very, very much tried to paint us as criminals, propagandists, spies.

In the days and weeks that followed to say that we had

a crash course in how federal investigations work would be putting it mildly.

After the FBI left, we ended up finding out that our bank accounts had been frozen.

So they didn't just end up seizing our electronics, they also seized our bank accounts, which was very difficult because

Let me tell you, when the FBI raid your house, you're going to want a lawyer.

And then when the AG himself is basically accusing you of trying to subvert the election, you're going to want a good one.

But of course, our accounts had been frozen.