The Plot To Derail Mueller

Ken AshfordL'Affaire Russe, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

Well, well, well:

An alleged scheme to pay off women to fabricate sexual assault allegations against Special Counsel Robert Mueller has been referred to the FBI for further investigation, according to a spokesman for the special counsel’s office, Peter Carr. “When we learned last week of allegations that women were offered money to make false claims about the Special Counsel, we immediately referred the matter to the FBI for investigation,” Carr said in a statement on Tuesday.

The special counsel’s attention to this scheme—which was brought to the office by a woman claiming she herself had been offered money to make up sexual harassment claims against Mueller—and its decision to release a rare statement about it to reporters indicates the seriousness with which the office is taking the purported scheme to discredit Mueller in the middle of an ongoing investigation.

The special counsel’s office confirmed that the scheme was brought to its attention by several journalists who were told about it by a woman alleging  that she herself had been offered roughly $20,000 by a GOP activist named Jack Burkman “to make accusations of sexual misconduct and workplace harassment against Robert Mueller.” The woman told journalists that she had worked for Mueller as a paralegal at the Pillsbury, Madison, and Sutro law firm in 1974. The firm has not returned a request for comment about whether the woman actually worked there.

He “offered to pay off all of my credit card debt, plus bring me a check for $20,000 if I would do one thing,” the woman wrote to the journalists in an email, a copy of which I obtained. “In more of an effort to get him to go away than anything else, I asked him what in the hell he wanted me to do. He said that we could not talk about it on the phone, and he asked me to download an app on my phone called Signal, which he said was more secure. Reluctantly, I downloaded the app and he called me on that app a few minutes later. He said (and I will never forget exactly what it was) ‘I want you to make accusations of sexual misconduct and workplace harassment against Robert Mueller, and I want you to sign a sworn affidavit to that effect.’”

The woman was not willing to speak to the reporters by phone, so portions of her story have gone uncorroborated.  Around the time that the journalists began receiving the email, Burkman released a video on his Facebook page claiming, without evidence, that Mueller “has a whole lifetime history of harassing women.”  On Tuesday, the day the special counsel revealed that it had referred the woman’s claims to the FBI,  Burkman tweeted a similar allegation. He did not return a request for comment.

UPDATE:

It’s clear that this is a set-up. NBC News reports:

While investigating the possibility of a hoax, the Hill Reporter‘s Ed Krassenstein, who was one of the reporters contacted, said he received threats, including a text message reading, “You’re in over your head…. Drop this” which included his and another editor’s home addresses. Krassenstein and other journalists also pointed to Jacob Wohl, a disgraced hedge fund manager turned pro-Trump conspiracy theorist and Surefire Intelligence, a company connected to him, as being involved with Burkman’s alleged plot.

The allegations still took off as viral posts on far-right news sites known for spreading fake news and disinformation tied to Wohl. Gateway Pundit, where Wohl is employed as a writer, touted their “exclusive documents” about a “very credible witness.” Wohl declined to comment on his involvement with Surefire Intelligence.

However, his email is listed in the domain records for Surefire Intelligence’s website and calls to a number listed on the Surefire Intelligence website went to a voicemail message which provided another phone number, listed in public records as belonging to Wohl’s mother. Wohl stopped responding to NBC News after being told Surefire’s official phone number redirects to his mother’s voicemail.

Wohl is still denying though:

But he’s doubling down —

The nail in the coffin — Mueller was on jury duty that day.