A Foreign Influence Campaign Hidden in Plain Sight
Aunoo Intelligence · 16 July 2026
In September 2025, the State of Israel began paying a company run by former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale to influence opinion among young American conservatives.
The arrangement was not exposed through leaked documents or an anonymous whistle-blower. It was publicly registered with the US Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
A TIME investigation published on 13 July examined those filings, interviewed people familiar with the campaign and obtained responses from Parscale and Israeli and American officials.
Aunoo has now published a full situation report and actor profile on the operation, which we track as Manasseh Chorus.
Our analysis separates what the public record establishes from what remains alleged, and maps the organisations, relationships and infrastructure behind the campaign.
What the contract says
According to the filings reviewed by TIME, the advertising agency Havas engaged Parscale’s company, Clock Tower X, on behalf of the State of Israel in September 2025.
The contract was worth $1.5 million a month.
Clock Tower X was expected to produce at least 100 pieces of content each month, with more than 80 per cent aimed at Gen Z audiences. The intended channels included TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and podcasts.
The campaign was also expected to generate at least 50 million impressions each month. A draft agreement contemplated distributing the messaging through social media and properties associated with Salem Media Network, where Parscale serves as chief strategy officer.
The registered purpose was to combat antisemitism online. An Israeli Foreign Ministry official told TIME that the more specific concern was declining support for Israel among younger American conservatives.
Parscale confirmed the campaign and said it was intended to prevent young conservatives from turning against Israel.
The sponsor, contractor, price and stated deliverables all appear in the filings, and Parscale has confirmed the purpose of the campaign.
The alleged influencer network
The filings do not establish exactly how the campaign’s content reached its audience.
TIME’s account of the distribution mechanism relies on three people familiar with the operation. They described a network involving Clock Tower X and two other Parscale-linked businesses, Campaign Nucleus and Influenceable.
According to those sources, conservative influencers received suggested language through private group chats and were compensated according to the reach their posts generated.
Clock Tower X describes its services in similar terms:
“Managed networks that amplify narratives through credible, distributed voices.”
The message therefore does not appear as an advertisement from a foreign government or political consultancy. It arrives through a commentator the audience already follows and trusts.
Parscale denies that money from the FARA-registered contract was used to pay influencers. He says separate Christian organisations hired his companies to support Israel after 7 October 2023, but has not identified those organisations.
TIME has reported a mechanism for coordinated influencer amplification, supported by three anonymous sources and Clock Tower X’s own description of its business. It has not published contracts or payment records showing which influencers were paid or where that money came from.
Our assessment therefore places high confidence on the existence and terms of the Israeli contract, but only moderate confidence on the scale and effect of the alleged influencer network.
“What does bother me is when those operations, those influence campaigns, actually affect American political judgment.”
— JD Vance, quoted by Reuters
The political dispute has since moved into the open. In a Joe Rogan podcast episode published on 15 July, Vice President JD Vance said that people within the Israeli government had tried to change American opinion in order to keep the conflict with Iran going. He did not identify Clock Tower X or directly connect that activity to Parscale’s contract. Reuters reported his comments on 16 July.
The contract specifically targeted AI systems
One part of the contract is particularly unusual.
According to TIME, the campaign included an effort to influence how commercial AI systems, including ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, characterise Israel and the war in Gaza.
TIME also identified two websites, PaxPoint.org and FactSignal.org, that were reportedly designed partly for ingestion by AI systems rather than primarily for human readers.
This is not evidence that the companies operating those systems participated in the campaign, nor does it show whether the effort succeeded. It does show that influencing AI-generated answers was a contractual objective.
The method described is closer to search-engine optimisation than model tampering. The aim is to publish material that AI systems can find, classify and reuse, increasing the chance that it shapes later answers.
What is established and what remains unproven
The sponsor, budget and stated objectives are documented. Parscale confirms that the campaign existed and was intended to maintain conservative support for Israel.
The account of private messaging groups and reach-based influencer payments rests on anonymous sources. The participating influencers have not been named, the payment trail is not public, and the campaign’s effect on political opinion has not been independently measured.
TIME’s reporting is substantial, but it remains the principal investigation on which the current account depends.
Aunoo is therefore holding the Manasseh Chorus actor profile at tentative. The identities of the influencers, their payment arrangements and the campaign’s actual reach have not been independently verified.
What could change the assessment
Names, contracts, payment records or independent evidence of the campaign’s impact would strengthen the assessment.
Regulatory action may also clarify whether registering the main contract under FARA is sufficient when people delivering its messages do not disclose the sponsorship to their audiences.
OpenAI, Anthropic and Google have a separate question to answer: whether they detected the attempt to influence their systems, and what controls they have against organised efforts to shape the information their models retrieve and repeat.
For now, the public record shows that Israel paid Brad Parscale’s firm millions of dollars to influence young American conservatives, with contractual targets for content production, audience reach and how commercial AI systems describe Israel and the war.
It does not yet show who carried the campaign’s messages, how they were paid or whether the operation worked.
Read the Aunoo research
Manasseh Chorus situation report
Sources
TIME: “Trump’s Former Campaign Manager Is Running an Influence Operation for Israel”, published 13 July 2026 and corrected 14 July 2026.
Reuters: “Vance says some in Israeli government sought to sway US on Iran deal”, published 16 July 2026.
