Journalist Scott Stedman has alerted Twitter users to a scheme aimed at smearing special counsel Robert Mueller. You can read the full details of Stedman’s account below, as well as corroborating accounts from other journalists responding to Stedman’s thread. The man behind the scheme, Jack Burkman, a self-styled conservative commentator, has repeatedly spread hurtful conspiracy theories, including at least one that gained widespread attention in conservative circles about a former Democratic National Committee intern who was murdered in Washington.
Now this D.C.-based lawyer and conservative commentator has apparently been busy offering women tens of thousands of dollars to smear Robert Mueller ahead of the release of his Russia-Trump findings. Stedman warned that the launch of this smear campaign was imminent, and sure enough, Burkman took to Twitter today.
Well, Jack Burkman better have one hell of a lawyer. From the Atlantic:
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.
Here’s what one of the women says Burkman wanted her to do:
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.’”
But, wait…..there’s more. Scott Stedman says the woman’s claims are completely unverified and suggests this might be bait to trap members of the media into reporting a false story.
Jane Mayer of the New Yorker and other highly respected journalists are also noting how fishy this story is from the start.
Yashar Ali published the suspicious email he received two weeks ago.
The FBI’s on the case, so look for this scheme to unravel quickly.