FBI looking into bid to smear Russia probe chief Mueller

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing an alleged scheme to pay women to accuse Russia collusion probe chief Robert Mueller of sexual harassment in a bid to discredit him, his office said Tuesday.

The scheme was uncovered after a woman who said she worked for Mueller decades ago told several journalists she had been offered $20,000 to accuse him of sexual misconduct.

“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,” Mueller’s spokesman Peter Carr said.

Carr did not offer any additional details, but his rare public statement made clear that Mueller’s office was taking the claims seriously.

When a matter is referred to the FBI, the agency must investigate the merits of the complaint.

Carr’s statement came on the same day that a conservative radio and podcast host known for promoting conspiracy theories, Jack Burkman, announced plans to “unveil the first of the sex assault victims of Robert Mueller” on Thursday.

Burkman denied offering payments as part of the alleged scheme, calling the claims “false.”

“The left is trying to defend Mueller against sex assault allegations so they attack me in desperation,” he said on Twitter. “The establishment media knows that Mueller may go down over this — they want to deflect attention.”

News of the alleged smear scheme came just one week before midterm congressional elections, in which Mueller’s investigation casts a cloud over Republicans.

Scheme

The Hill Reporter website said the scheme surfaced after it and several other news outlets were contacted by an anonymous woman saying she had been offered cash by a man to make allegations against Mueller.

She told the reporters in an email sent on October 18 that a man offered her $20,000 and would pay off her large credit card debt to do so, according to the Hill Reporter.

“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,” she quoted the man as saying.

The woman — who has since been unreachable — said that the person who contacted her claimed to work for Burkman, the Hill Reporter said.

Burkman hosts a podcast on NewsmaxTV, part of the Newsmax Media group led by Chris Ruddy, a close confidant of US President Donald Trump, whose presidential campaign is being investigated by Mueller’s team.

He first claimed to have evidence of misbehavior by Mueller, including alcoholism and sexual assault, on October 20, two days after the mysterious woman emailed the reporters.

The smear campaign appeared to emanate from a company called Surefire Intelligence, which seems to be connected to former teenage hedge fund manager and pro-Trump cheerleader, Jacob Wohl, NBC reported.

“I gave Burkman a call. I wanted to know who ‘Surefire Intelligence’ is. That’s when he told me about Jacob Wohl,” the Hill Reporter’s Ed Krassenstein told the outlet. “To me, this was all a setup from somebody trying to discredit the media.”

Wohl declined to comment on any connection to Surefire Intelligence; however, according to NBC, a phone number connected to the company redirected inquiries to a phone number registered to Wohl’s mother, and open-source intelligence investigators Bellingcat discovered that the email address jacob.wohl@nexmanagement.com was involved in the domain registration for the company’s website.

Wohl was raised and still lives in Orange County, a politically conservative area of Southern California, in a Jewish Republican home.

He has said he agrees with Trump “on 90 percent or 95 percent of his positions” — first and foremost immigration. However, he disagrees with Trump on the issue of Israel — Wohl would like to see the president, who has been friendly to the Israeli government’s agenda, take an even harder line against the Palestinian Authority, which administers the Palestinian areas of the West Bank.

“I would like to see the Palestinian Authority defunded completely by the United States and treated like ISIS or any other terrorist organization because that’s what they are,” he said.

Wohl’s political activism ramped up with the start of Trump’s campaign in 2015, and since has skyrocketed.

He writes pieces for the right-wing site The Gateway Pundit, runs his own right-wing news site called The Washington Reporter and co-hosts a podcast with far-right activist Laura Loomer called “2 Live Jew,” which is advertised as the “#1 Podcast for Jewish Trump Supporters.” Episode titles have included “The Caliphate Comes to Toronto” and “Full Commie.”

Former FBI director targeted

Mueller is a former FBI director tasked last year with investigating allegations that members of Trump’s campaign team colluded with Russia to sway the 2016 election in his favor.

The probe has expanded to examine possible attempts by Trump himself to obstruct the investigation, which could — if proven — lead to the president’s impeachment.

The former marine has a spotless reputation as an attorney, federal prosecutor and FBI chief. So far, his probe has issued 35 indictments and obtained six guilty pleas and one trial conviction.

But Trump and Republicans have labeled his investigation as biased and overextended, with Trump branding it the “illegal Mueller witch hunt.”