The October surprise that wasn’t… The failed Republican attempt to frame Robert Mueller for rape one week before the midterms

With momentum slowing for Republican candidates after the racist killings in Louisville, the anti-Semitic mass murder in Pittsburgh, and the attempted assassination of several prominent Democrats by a Trump supporter, the leaders of the far-right are doing everything in their power to turn things around before next Tuesday’s midterm election. They’re telling lies about protections for people with pre-existing conditions and middle class tax cuts that don’t exist. And, of course, they’re still sounding the racist dog whistle, although they seem to be playing down the big lie about the so-called caravan of refugees heading north from Central American for the time being, and instead talking about eliminating the 14th amendment to the Constitution, thereby ending what’s known as birthright citizenship. [By doing so, Trump can still excite the racist base, but in a way that doesn’t give them specific targets to go after with their assault weapons and pipe bombs.]

The most interesting thing to happen today, though, was that several right-wing media organizations ran stories about women coming forward to make serious sexual misconduct claims against special counsel Robert Mueller… stories which, for reasons that we’ll get into in a minute, would later have to be pulled.

Before we get into how the whole thing fell apart, here are a few social media posts from the two men most closely associated with the fake news story, pro-Trump conspiracy theorists Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl.

If Burkman’s name sounds familiar, it might be from back in 2017, when he publicly defended Roy Moore, claiming that the sexual misconduct charges against the judge were manufactured by Democrats. Burkman, at the time, said that, if he’d wanted to, he could frame anyone for sex crimes. “I can produce three women to say anything about anybody,” he said. And it looks as though that might be exactly what he did here… but we’ll get to that in a minute.

First, though, we should talk about how all of this played out. Burkman and Wohl, as you can see above, came out this morning, stating that women would be coming forward to accuse Robert Mueller of sexual misconduct, and even rape. And, this, as you might imagine, was quickly picked up by multiple right-wing websites. Shortly thereafter, however, news not only broke that a woman had come forward to the media stating that she’d been offered over $20,000 by Burkman to lie and swear that Mueller had sexually abused her, but that Mueller, having heard of this last week, had already requested that the FBI investigate the claims.

Here, by way of background, is an excerpt from a story that just ran in The Atlantic.

…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 man claiming to work for a GOP activist named Jack Burkman “to make accusations of sexual misconduct and workplace harassment against Robert Mueller.” The woman told journalists in an email, a copy of which I obtained, that she had worked for Mueller as a paralegal at the Pillsbury, Madison, and Sutro law firm in 1974, but that she “didn’t see” him much. “When I did see him, he was always very polite to me, and was never inappropriate,” the woman wrote. The firm has not returned a request for comment about whether the woman actually worked there.

The woman explained that she was contacted by a man “with a British accent” who wanted to ask her “a couple questions about Robert Mueller, whom I worked with when I was a paralegal for Pillsbury, Madison, and Sutro in 1974. I asked him who he was working for, and he told me his boss was some sort of politics guy in Washington named Jack Burkman. I reluctantly told [him] that I had only worked with Mr. Mueller for a short period of time, before leaving that firm to have my first son.”

She continued: “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 man “offered to pay off all of my credit card debt, plus bring me a check for $20,000 if I would do” it, she wrote. “He knew exactly how much credit card debt I had, right down to the dollar, which sort of freaked me out.”

The woman was not willing to speak to the reporters by phone, according to Scott Stedman, one of the reporters who received the letter. So portions of her story have gone uncorroborated, and her identity has not been independently confirmed. Around the time that the journalists began receiving the email, however, 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’s office revealed that it had referred the woman’s claims to the FBI, Burkman tweeted a similar allegation.

In an emailed statement, Burkman denied knowing the woman who originally alerted journalists to the alleged scheme and called the FBI referral “a joke, mueller wants to deflect attention from his sex assault troubles by attacking me.” He added in a separate email that “on Thursday 1200 NOON ROSSYLN HOLIDAY INN we will present a very credible witness who will allege that Mr. Mueller committed against her a sexual assault.” Mueller’s spokesman reiterated that the claims are false.

Burkman, a conservative radio host, is known for spreading conspiracy theories. He launched his own private investigation into the murder of the DNC staffer Seth Rich, dangled uncorroborated claims of sexual harassment against a sitting member of Congress, and earlier this year offered $25,000 to FBI whistle-blowers for any information exposing wrongdoing during the 2016 election. He also promoted legislation that he authored—despite not being a member of Congress—that would ban gays from playing in the National Football League, and has hosted two fundraisers for Rick Gates—the former Trump campaign official who was indicted by Mueller late last year…

When confronted about his role in this earlier today, Wohl denied that he had anything to do with attempts to pay women in exchange for their perjured testimony. He told NBC News that he had nothing whatsoever to do with Surefire Intelligence, the organization that these efforts had been tracked back to. Unfortunately for Wohl, though, when he set up the Surefire website, he used his mother’s telephone number.

And there we are. Wohl and Burkman are being questioned by the FBI, and even the right-wing “news” agencies like Gateway Pundit are running away from the story. The only question that remains, I think, is to what extent, if any, this poorly executed “rat fucking” campaign was orchestrated by Trump administration insiders like Roger Stone. And I guess we’ll have that answer soon enough.

As for why all of this is happen now, if I had to guess, I’d say it’s because they can sense taht the tide is turning against them, and they know, if the Democrats retake either house of Congress, they’re going to finally be held accountable for their actions. So this is it for them. If they’ve got a half-assed plan in the works, we’re going to see it this week. Nothing will be held back… God help us all.

Oh, and speaking of Wohl, he’s also the guy who said this.