Republicans are really desperate to discredit Special Counsel, Bob Mueller. How desperate? The latest stunt appears to be an effort to capitalize on the MeToo movement of holding powerful men who are accused of sexual harassment accountable and bringing them to justice years, or even decades, later.
But in this case the story appears to be completely false.
The Atlantic is reporting that the alleged scheme involving women lying about sexual assault and harassment allegations against Special Counsel, Bob Mueller has already been sent over to the FBI for investigation. Peter Carr, the spokesman for the Special Counsel's office said:
“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.”
The scheme was brought to the attention of Mueller's office by a woman who said that she had been offered money to make fabricate sexual harassment claims against Mueller. In addition to the woman's claims, numerous journalists also reached out to the stating that the woman had contacted them, claiming that she had been offered $20,000 by a person claiming to work for a GOP operative named Jack Burkman and that she was supposed to "make accusations of sexual misconduct and workplace harassment against Robert Mueller."
The woman says she worked for Muller at the law firm of Pillsbury, Madison, and Sutro in 1974 as a paralegal. The woman told The Atlantic that she was contacted by a man “with a British accent” and that she was asked questions about her employment with Mueller. When she asked who the man worked for, he said that his boss was "some sort of politics guy in Washington named Jack Burkman." She asked him what he wanted her to do and he asked her to download communications app Signal so they could communicate privately.
She claims that he called her moments later and said "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." In exchange for this allegation, she claims that the man “offered to pay off all of my credit card debt, plus bring me a check for $20,000."
Outside of her statement, the story has not been corroborated. As this story broke, Burkman and Wohl posted these tweets:
Burkman denies knowing the woman and is doubling down, stating that the FBI referral is a joke and that "Mueller wants to deflect attention from his sex assault troubles by attacking me.” He still plans to have his "witness" come forward at the Holiday Inn on Thursday.
Curious to see if the FBI will be there waiting for him. I suspect they have some questions. There's definitely some applicable statutes:
