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Special Counsel Refers Scheme Targeting Mueller to FBI
The FBI has been asked to investigate claims that women have been offered money to fabricate sexual-harassment allegations against Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Natasha Bertrand is a staff writer at The Atlantic where she covers national security and the intelligence community.1:14 PM ET

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FBI Director Robert Mueller listens to questioning while testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on "Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)," on Capitol Hill in Washington September 17, 2008.Molly Riley / Reuters
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 reporters 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, according to Scott Stedman, one of the reporters who received the letter. 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.

In a statement, Burkman denied knowing the woman who originally alerted journalists to the alleged scheme. But he told me in an 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 DNC staffer Seth Rich, and earlier this year offered $25,000 to FBI whistleblowers for any information exposing wrongdoing during the 2016 election.

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Looks Like Someone May Be Planning False Sexual Assault Accusations Against Robert Mueller

Looks Like Someone May Be Planning False Sexual Assault Accusations Against Robert Mueller
by Colin Kalmbacher | 11:06 am, October 30th, 2018
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An unknown person or organization appears to be planning a series of false sexual misconduct allegations in an effort to smear Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Independent investigative journalist Scott Stedman whose writing has appeared in The Guardian, first alerted the world to the work being done in a series of tweets during the early morning hours on Tuesday. At 1:05 a.m. he wrote:

I wasn’t going to report on this, but I think my fears are coming true. Based on information that I am privy to, I believe false accusations will be spread about Mueller in order to discredit him and possibly the journalists who are preparing this story.

At least two mainstream journalists appear to have confirmed some aspects of the above story.

The Atlantic‘s Natasha Bertrand has authored several expansive pieces on various aspects of the Mueller probe over the course of the special counsel’s wide-ranging investigation. In a Tuesday morning tweet, Bertrand offered a terse confirmation of Stedman’s claims:

The New Yorker‘s Jane Mayer is another journalist who has spent the recent past devoted to an ongoing story that’s captured many of this year’s headlines: sexual assault allegations against powerful men. Minutes after Bertrand confirmed Stedman’s story, Mayer offered her own take–and apparent awareness–of the earlier claims. Mayer noted:

Stedman elaborated on his claims, writing:

Two weeks ago, I was contacted by a woman who claimed to be a former associate of Mueller who said that she got a phone call from a man working on behalf of a GOP operative who was paying women to come forward to make up sexual assault allegations.

Additional tweets pieced the story together further. Stedman said he “chased down leads” but did not find the woman to be reliable. He did say he got in touch with the person who was allegedly offering money to accusers.

“He was extremely willing to confirm that he was indeed paying women to tell stories about Mueller,” Stedman wrote. “I concluded that this was an effort to discredit journalists working on the Trump-Russia story by planting a false story and see who would print it.”

“I worked on this story and chased down leads, but found the woman to be very unreliable, Stedman wrote. “She wouldn’t get on the phone, she lied about journalists she was working with, etc. Furthermore, I got in contact with the man who allegedly was offering the money.”

At the time of this publication, no accusations against Mueller have been made.

After this story was published, however, Mueller’s office confirmed the nature of the false allegation story and said that the matter had been referred to the FBI. In a statement, special counsel spokesperson Peter Carr 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.

[image via Alex Wong/Getty Images]

Follow Colin Kalmbacher on Twitter: @colinkalmbacher

Editor’s note: this story has been amended post-publication to include a response from the special counsel’s office.
 
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