burkman

===

DISBAR TRY

see main wohl wall str

// jok fails

===

an 12 24

The Michigan Court of Appeals on Friday upheld criminal charges against two far-right operatives who prosecutors say made a series of robocalls in the state during the 2020 election particularly targeting Black voters in Detroit.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced that criminal charges had been filed against Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl back in 2020 after it had been found that the pair had made about 85,000 calls spreading misinformation and fear about voting across Midwestern states.

After hearing arguments concerning the case in November of 2023, the Michigan Supreme Court (MSC) supported assertions that Burkman and Wohl had utilized “corrupt means” and instructed the Court of Appeals to examine whether the pair’s actions violated state election laws.

The Michigan Supreme Court concluded in June of this year that the defendants attempted to deter Black metro Detroiters from participating in the 2020 election using the “immoral or depraved” method of spreading election misinformation, particularly for mail-in voting, using “racially based motives”.

“Defendants discussed their desire to “hi-jack this boring election” and arranged for the distribution of a robocall specifically to “black neighborhoods” with the call stating that the consequences of mail-in voting would include voter information being used by police departments to effectuate old warrants, by credit card companies to collect outstanding debts, and (potentially) by the CDC to support mandatory vaccination efforts,” the MSC wrote in its opinion in June.

In that opinion, the MSC ruled that the Court of Appeals needed to review whether Burkman and Wohl’s conduct violated Michigan law, specifically a section of election law pertaining to elector influence.

Michigan’s election laws say, “A person shall not attempt, by means of bribery, menace, or other corrupt means or device, either directly or indirectly, to influence an elector in giving his or her vote, or to deter the elector from, or interrupt the elector in giving his or her vote at any election held in this state.”

On Friday, the Michigan Court of Appeals found that because the calls directly pertained to misinformation about mail-in voting and promlegating false information in order to disrupt and deter Black voters in Michigan, they violate the law and Burkman and Wohl’s criminal charges stand.

“There can be no reasonable dispute that voting by mail is a voting procedure. That is, voting by mail is “a particular way of accomplishing” voting, which fits the definition of “procedure.” The robocall was related to the procedure, because it alleged that, if a voter used the voting procedure identified, certain negative events “will” occur,” Court of Appeals Judge Anica Letica wrote in the opinion.

In a dissenting opinion, Court of Appeals Judge James Redford argued that the robocalls did not pertain to voting requirements or procedures, but rather possible negative consequences of participating in absentee voting, so the court has not fulfilled the inquiries set out by the Michigan Supreme Court to uphold the charges.

Nessel applauded the court’s decision saying in a statement her office looks forward to the case being brought to trial.

“Voter intimidation infringes upon the fundamental right to vote,” Nessel said “I am grateful the Court of Appeals saw this conduct for what it was—a gross misrepresentation of voting procedures meant to scare voters from participating in our elections.”

Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Susan J. Demas for questions: info@michiganadvance.com.

an 11 22

During the 2020 election, the team of Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman — two far-right MAGA activists and conspiracy theorists known for their underhanded stunts — were behind racist robocalls aimed at African-American voters. The robocalls, according to prosecutors, were a blatant attempt at voter suppression, trying to convince Black voters that if they voted by mail, the information they provided could lead to legal consequences for unpaid debts.

But Wohl and Burkman were the ones who ended up facing legal consequences. In late October, both of them pled guilty to a felony count of telecommunications fraud. And on Tuesday, November 29, a sentence was handed down in Ohio by Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge John Sutula.

Sutula, according to Cleveland.com reporter Cory Shaffer, “placed” Wohl andBurkman “on two years of probation, fined each $2500 and ordered them to wear GPS ankle monitors with home confinement beginning at 8 p.m. each day for the first six months of their probation.” And they will be required to “spend 500 hours registering voters in low-income neighborhoods in the Washington, D.C., area,” Shaffer reports.

The 71-year-old judge had scathing criticism for Wohl and Burkman, telling the MAGA Republicans, “I think it’s a despicable thing that you guys have done” and comparing their racist robocalls of 2020 to efforts to bully and intimidate African-American voters during the 1960s.

Sutula’s ruling was strictly for a case in Ohio. Wohl and Burkman have also been facing criminal charges in Michigan and a civil lawsuit in New York State in connection with their racist robocalls of 2020.

Wohl and Burkman weren’t physically present in Judge Sutula’s courtroom in Ohio, but rather, attended the hearing online. And Wohl told Sutula, “I just really want to express my absolute regret and shame over all of this.” Both of them could have been sentenced to up to a year in prison for telecommunications fraud in the Ohio case.

Shaffer notes, “The charge is connected to thousands of robocalls placed in Cleveland in the run-up to the 2020 election between then-President Donald Trump and the Democratic challenger, Joe Biden. The robocalls came at a time when states across the country had expanded the use of mail-in voting as a protective measure during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pair gained notoriety in recent years by throwing press conferences to levy phony sexual misconduct allegations against prominent Democrats and Republicans who are critical of former President Donald Trump. They are also charged in Michigan and are being sued by a civil rights organization in federal court in New York over the same robocalls.”

===

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/right-wing-fraudsters-jacob-wohl-and-jack-burkman-get-criminally-charged-in-election-conspiracy

Right-wing smear artists Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman will face four counts in an alleged criminal scheme to influence the 2020 election after Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed charges on Thursday.

Nessel accused the pair of intimidating voters, conspiring to break election law, using a computer to commit an election crime, and using a computer to carry out a conspiracy.

The charges center on a robocall scheme the Nessel said was an attempt to "discourage voters from participating in the general election." According to the press release, the scheme targeted urban areas, including Detroit, and was focused on "areas with significant minority populations."

Wohl previously denied to CNN that he or Burkman were involved in any robocall schemes.

"It's believed around 85,000 calls were made nationally, though an exact breakdown of the numbers of calls to each city or state are not available," according to Nessel's office. Similar robocalls reportedly were made in New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, the last two of which are swing states in the presidential election.

The robocall allegedly attempted to make voters afraid to cast their ballots, telling them to not be "finessed into giving your private information to the man" [JOK SUPERFLY PIMP STRIKES AGAIN] and that they should "beware of vote by mail." The press release explained:

The caller, who claims to be associated with an organization founded by Burkman and Wohl, falsely tells people that mail-in voting, in particular, will allow personal information to become part of a special database used by police to track down old warrants and by credit card companies to collect outstanding debts. The caller also deceptively claims the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will use the information to track people for mandatory vaccines. However, none of that is true.

"This effort specifically targeted minority voters in an attempt to deter them from voting in the November election," said Nessel. "We're all well aware of the frustrations caused by the millions of nuisance robocalls flooding our cell phones and landlines each day, but this particular message poses grave consequences for our democracy and the principles upon which it was built."

Burkman and Wohl have made themselves notorious with a series of stunts that included trying to smear former Special Counsel Robert Mueller and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg with bogus and sexual assault allegations.

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/right-wing-political-operatives-jack-burkman-and-jacob-wohl-target-black-voters-with-robocalls-disinformation/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Burkman

jack Burkman (born 1965 or 1966^[1]) is an American conservative lobbyist and conspiracy theorist.^[3][4][5] Burkman has been involved, along with far-right conspiracy theorist Jacob Wohl, in multiple plots that attempted to frame public figures for fictitious sexual assaults, including in October 2018 against U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, in April 2019 against 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, and in April 2020 against White House Coronavirus Task Force member Anthony Fauci.^[6][7][8][9] Burkman was also involved in spreading conspiracy theories about the 2016 murder of Seth Rich, and in 2017 Burkman was shot in the buttocks and thigh and hit with a car by a man he had hired to assist him in an independent attempt to solve Rich's murder.^[10][11] Burkman drew significant media attention in 2014 for organizing a protest against the Dallas Cowboys of the NFL after the team signed Michael Sam, an openly gay football player, to its practice squad.^[12][13][14]

Burkman is the president of the lobbying firm J.M. Burkman & Associates and the head of the conservative organization American Decency.^[15][16] He is the host of the Behind the Curtain podcast and radio talk show.^[4][17]

Life and education[

Burkman was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.^[2] He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1988, and in 1992 graduated with a M.S. from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.^[2][18] Burkman lives in Arlington, Virginia in a home that doubles as the headquarters of his and Wohl's organization, Project 1599.^[2][19]

Attempts to frame political figures[

Robert Mueller[

On October 30, 2018, NBC News and The Atlantic published articles detailing a scheme to falsely accuse U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller of sexual misconduct in 1974. The articles reported that on October 17, 2018, several journalists received emails from a person claiming to be named "Lorraine Parsons" that asserted Burkman had hired a man with Surefire Intelligence, a company created by far-right conspiracy theorist Jacob Wohl, to offer her more than $20,000 to sign an affidavit falsely accusing Mueller of sexual misconduct and workplace harassment. "Parsons" told the reporters she had worked with Mueller at the law firm Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro in 1974, and that the man from Surefire had asked her to falsely accuse Mueller of engaging in misconduct during that time. Mueller worked at Pillsbury in 1974, but the firm told reporters they had no record of any Lorraine Parsons ever working there. "Parsons" declined reporters' requests to speak on the phone, and none of the reporters published the story until the scheme became evident.^[6][7]

On October 31, Burkman tweeted and Wohl retweeted that Parsons did not exist, denying involvement in the matter, and calling it "a hoax designed to distract the nation from [Burkman's] press conference" to be held the next day.^[20] Burkman denied knowing "Parsons", although The Atlantic noted that he posted a video on his Facebook page around the same time Taub and "Parsons" began to be contacted by Surefire Intelligence, asserting without evidence that Mueller "has a whole lifetime history of harassing women."^[7] Burkman tweeted that at the press conference he would "reveal the first of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's sex assault victims" and "prove that he is a drunk and a sexual abuser."^[21][22][23]

Wohl and Burkman convened a press conference outside Washington on November 1, ostensibly to present a woman who they said signed an affidavit, which The Gateway Pundit had published, accusing Mueller of raping her in a New York hotel room in 2010—on a date he was contemporaneously reported by the Washington Post to be serving jury duty in Washington.^[24] The men accused Mueller's office of "leaking" the eight year-old Post story to discredit their allegations. The purported accuser, Carolyne Cass, did not appear at the press conference as they had initially stated she would, and the men asserted she had panicked in fear of her life and taken a flight to another location.^[25][26]

Pete Buttigieg[

On April 22, 2019, Jack Burkman tweeted "2020 is shaping up to be more exciting than 2016. Looking like it will be Trump vs. Mayor Pete! Get the popcorn ready!"^[8]

On April 28, a Medium post emerged under the name of a gay Republican college student, alleging that Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana and a Democratic presidential candidate for 2020, had sexually assaulted him in February. A Twitter account created just a month prior under the student's name also emerged. The next day, The Daily Beast reported that Burkman and Jacob Wohl had tried to convince young Republican men to make false accusations of sexual assault against Buttigieg. One man attested that Burkman and Wohl had tried to convince him to falsely accuse Buttigieg of assaulting him when he was too drunk to consent. According to the source, Burkman and Wohl contacted him under the false identities "Matt Teller" and "Bill", but he recognized Wohl due to Wohl's internet notoriety and decided to record their conversation. He then provided the recording to The Daily Beast, which wrote that it corroborated the man's claims with the aid of an audio forensics analyst who determined that one man in the recording was "highly likely" to be Wohl.^{[8][27][28][29]}

The student who was being impersonated on Medium and Twitter told The Daily Beast that Burkman and Wohl flew him to Washington, D.C. under the guise of speaking about politics from the perspective of a gay Republican, and that he was unaware they were trying to involve him in their scheme. He said that he had to pretend that he was taking a nap in order to escape Burkman's residence, and that they had created the Medium profile and a Twitter profile claiming to be him without his permission.^[8][27]

Burkman and Wohl announced that they would be holding a press conference at Burkman's house on May 8 to continue their accusations against Buttigieg. On May 7, Burkman tweeted a link to an event called "Protest Against Homophobic Bigots" and wrote, "Hundreds of leftist protestors are set to descend on our Wednesday Press conference. We WILL NOT surrender to the mob. We’ve called in extra security to guard our safety and that of our partners in the media." The protest was discovered to be fake, organized by Wohl himself, when attendees received confirmation emails containing the email address wohlthinktank@gmail.com, which Wohl had used in the past.^[30] **Mediaite** noted that events may be registered with false contact information, but that Eventbrite would have emailed the address used by the organizer allowing them to delete or edit the event.^[31] However, Wohl denied involvement in creating the event page. Eventbrite later took down the event page citing their rules against "inauthentic content".^[30]

At the May 8 press conference, Burkman and Wohl displayed footage of the student they had flown to Washington, D.C. drinking a coffee as proof that the student was not being coerced, with Wohl explaining that "Most forced coercion events… do not involve caramel frappuccino." During the press conference, the student released a statement describing Burkman and Wohl as "chronic liars" and stating that he would not be at the press conference as they had claimed. No protesters appeared at the fake protest of the press conference that Wohl himself had attempted to organize.^[32]

Anthony Fauci:{:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[e}:

In a late April 2020 press release, a woman claimed to have been sexually assaulted in 2014 by Dr. Anthony Fauci, a prominent member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Only The Daily Dot reported on the allegation, debunking it as a likely smear attempt.^[33] On May 2, 2020, the woman contacted *Reason Magazine* to confess that she and another woman had been paid by Burkman and Wohl to fabricate the allegations against Fauci. According to Reason, the woman contacted Burkman and Wohl and recorded their phone conversation. In that call, Wohl told her, "You did a good job, you got paid. What's the problem?" Burkman suggested that Fauci deserved the smear: "This guy shut the country down. He put 40 million people out of work. In a situation like that, you have to make up whatever you have to make up to stop that train and that's the way life works, OK? That's the way it goes... Mother Nature has to clean the barn every so often. How real is it? Who knows? So what if 1 percent of the population goes? So what if you lose 400,000 people? Two hundred thousand were elderly, the other 200,000 are the bottom of society. You got to clean out the barn. If it's real, it's a positive thing, for God's sake."^[9]

Others[

On October 1, 2019, Burkman and Jacob Wohl held a press conference on the front steps of Burkman's home in which they claimed to know the identity of the whistleblower who revealed possible impropriety by President Trump involving Ukraine,though they said they could not release it. The press conference was sparsely attended and described by The Washington Post as another in a series of events in which Burkman and Wohl "routinely announce they have discovered smoking-gun revelations against Trump’s rivals, then humiliate themselves when they fail to produce any evidence".^[34]

On October 3, 2019, Burkman and Wohl announced a press conference in which they said a 24-year-old former United States Marine would claim he had an affair with Senator and 2020 presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren; the announcement was met with mockery and disbelief, and generally viewed as another of Burkman and Wohl's false allegations.^[35]

On Friday, October 11, 2019, Burkman announced via Twitter that he and Wohl had scheduled a news conference for Monday, October 14. The press release stated that a purported illegal drug dealer would be presented, who would provide evidence that he sold illicit drugs to Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, House Sub-Committee on Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, and other unnamed members of Congress.^[36] At the press conference, which was postponed until October 21, Burkman and Wohlunexpectedly focused on claims that Senator**Ted Cruz**was cheating on his wife,only briefly mentioning their previous claims about Pelosi, and not producing any alleged drug dealer as they had announced they would.^[37]

Burkman claimed in January 2020 to have incriminating photographs of Adam Schiff engaged in sexual activity, a statement that earned Burkman attention among adherents to the far-rightQAnon conspiracy theorywho already believed that Schiff had been engaged in nefarious activity at the Standard Hotel in Los Angeles.^[38][39] The Daily Beast wrote that Burkman unsuccessfully attempted to launder the photographs through several publications before releasing them himself.^[39] However, the three photographs eventually published by Burkman were blurry pornographic images "featuring a completely unrecognizable middle-age white man engaged in various gay sex acts".^[39] Areverse image search revealed the photographs were generic pornography found via internet search.^[38][39]This angered Burkman's newfound fanbase among QAnon conspiracy theorists, some of whom alleged that Burkman himself was a "deep state" actor working on Schiff's behalf to obfuscate the truth.^[38][39]

Other activities[

In June 2016, Burkman held an event called "Lobbyists for Trump" and invited all major lobbyists of Washington, D.C. to help raise money for Donald Trump's presidential campaign.^[40][41] In July 2016, he helped fundraise for Free the Delegates, an anti-Trump effort to change the delegate rules for the 2016 Republican National Convention.^[42]

In October 2019, Wohl and Burkman announced they would investigate any rumors about candidates in the 2020 presidential election as a part of an effort they called "Project 1599." Any candidates they fully vet, they said, would receive the "Burkman-Wohl Seal of Approval."^[43]

On March 19, 2020, Twitter permanently suspended Burkman's account after he tweeted unevidenced claims about impending nationwide food shortages due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A Twitter spokesperson said the account had been suspended for repeated infractions of Twitter rules, including making false statements about COVID-19.^[44]

American Decency[

Burkman heads the organization American Decency, a conservative organization that claims to have 3.62 million members, though this claim is unverified.^[16] The organization drew media attention in 2014 when Burkman announced plans toprotest the Dallas Cowboys' signing of Michael Sam, the first publicly gay player to be drafted in the NFL.^[16][45][46] Burkman called for legislation that would prohibit homosexuals from playing in the NFL, though this proposed legislation was never formally introduced in the House of Representatives and never received a vote.^[47]

Seth Rich murder conspiracy theory[

Burkman started investigating the murder of Seth Rich in September 2016 after the Rich family accepted his pro bono public relations services.^[48] The Rich family and Burkman held a joint press conference about the murder in November 2016.^[48][49]

In January 2017, Burkman launched an advertising campaign in Northwest D.C. searching for information regarding Rich's death. This included billboard advertisements and canvassing with flyers.^[50][51] In late February, Burkman started spreading conspiracy theories by telling media outlets that he had a lead that the Russian government was involved in Rich's death,^[11] and the Rich family distanced itself from Burkman.^[52]

In March 2017, Burkman started "The Profiling Project", an independent investigative attempt to solve the murder of Seth Rich with help from forensics students at George Washington University.^[53][54] He hired Kevin Doherty, a former U.S. Marine and special agent, to help with the project, although tensions developed when Burkman felt Doherty was speaking to reporters when he shouldn't have been and trying to take control of the project. In July 2017, Burkman fired Doherty and sent him a cease and desist letter. In March 2018, Doherty lured Burkman to a parking garage by claiming to have evidence of FBI misconduct.^[10]

When Burkman arrived, Doherty shot him in the buttocks and thigh and hit him with an SUV, breaking Burkman's arm. Doherty was sentenced to nine years in prison.^[10]

Roger Stone jury[

In late February 2020, Burkman and Wohl alleged that the jury that convicted Roger Stone, on seven felonies related to the Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation, was biased against him. In a press conference held on February 27, 2020, Burkman and Wohl distributed copies of confidential juror questionnaires, and they later published some of the questionnaires on Twitter. In September 2020, The Daily Beast reported that the FBI was investigating Burkman and Wohl for potentially attempting to influence the jurors or tamper with witnesses. The FBI is also investigating how the two obtained the questionnaires.^[55]

Voter suppression robocall[

In August 2020, a robocall campaign attempted to suppress votes in battleground areas, including Detroit and Pennsylvania.^[56][1] The robocall campaign appeared to originate from Burkman's personal cell phone number, and the caller identified themselves as part of Burkman and Wohl's Project 1599.^[56][1] The message disseminated the false claims that information provided by those who use mail-in ballots will be used by police to find criminals, by credit card companies for debt collection purposes, and by the CDC to "track people for mandatory vaccines".

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said in a tweet that they were not sure who was responsible for the robocalls, but that her office would collaborate with the Michigan Attorney General's office to identify and prosecute its creator. In a press release, Benson and Attorney General Dana Nessel condemned the campaign as "racist" and as "an unconscionable, indefensible, blatant attempt to lie to citizens about their right to vote."^[56] Wohl told The Associated Press that he and Burkman believed "leftist pranksters" had spoofed Burkman's phone number to make the phone calls, and threatened to sue Benson for defamation.^[1]

On October 1, 2020, Nessel filed four felony charges each against Burkman and Wohl, including conspiring to intimidate voters in violation of election law and using a computer to commit the crimes. Nessel's investigation into the robocalls found that the two had attempted to suppress voters of color from voting in the 2020 presidential election via a robocall campaign that made 85,000 calls across the country, including 12,000 in Detroit. The week before the charges were filed, investigators searched Wohl's Los Angeles home.^[1]

Staged FBI raid[WHY?]

The Washington Post reported that agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had executed a raid on Burkman's home on the morning of September 14, 2020. Wohl claimed that the agents had taken "all of Jack's files, computers and phones" from the home, which is also the headquarters of Burkman and Wohl's organization, Project 1599.

By the afternoon of the same day, The Washington Post had updated their story to reflect that the raid had been staged. The Daily Beast discovered that Burkman and Wohl had again recruited actors on Craigslist to stage the raid, under the guise of recording a television show. The Daily Beast also reported that the Twitter account which published the photos of the raid was likely operated by Wohl.^[5][57]

Reference

https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/the-tale-of-a-right-wing-scam-artists-downward-trajectory

no lnx vod?

tale of a right-wing scam artist’s downward trajectory

Written by Roger Sollenberger / Salon June 5, 2020

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/right-wing-political-operatives-jack-burkman-and-jacob-wohl-target-black-voters-with-robocalls-disinformation/

https://www.washingtonian.com/tag/jack-burkman/

Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman Held a Press Conference in an Arlington Driveway

It looked more like a yard sale than a media event.

JACK BURKMAN, JACOB WOHL | MAY 8, 2019

NEWS

Fundraising Effort for Indicted Trump Aide Gets Off to a Slow Start

An event to raise money for Rick Gates's defense fund drew about as many journalists as potential donors.

ROBERT MUELLER, JACK BURKMAN, RICK GATES | DEC 20, 2017

NEWS

Surprise: Jack Burkman’s Press Conference About Sexual Abuse in Congress Went Nowhere

The lobbyist drew reporters to Arlington, promising claims of harassment by a sitting member of Congress. But his client never showed.

CONGRESS, SEXUAL HARASSMENT, JACK BURKMAN | NOV 29, 2017

seth rich

NEWS

The Guy Who Recreated Seth Rich’s Murder Wants Robert Mueller to Get Involved in the Case

Jack Burkman has created an ad with Russian subtitles.

ROBERT MUELLER, RUSSIA, SETH RICH, CONSPIRACY THEORIES | SEP 25, 2017

seth rich

NEWS

I Watched a Lobbyist Reenact Seth Rich’s Death. It Was a Live Production of Fake News.

CRIME, SETH RICH, CONSPIRACY THEORIES, JACK BURKMAN | AUG 2, 2017

NEWS

A Lobbyist’s “Report” About Seth Rich’s Death Is Just More Fodder for Conspiracy Theorists

CRIME, SETH RICH, JACK BURKMAN | JUN 20, 2017

NEWS

DC Lobbyist Is Still Using Seth Rich to Get Attention

Jack Burkman continues his one-man crusade despite the Rich family's pleas.

SETH RICH, JACK BURKMAN, WIKILEAKS, SEAN HANNITY | MAY 31, 2017

NEWS

DC Lobbyist Will Hire Actors to Reenact Seth Rich’s Murder

Jack Burkman, a Republican, wants to solve the case.

DONALD TRUMP, HILLARY CLINTON, SETH RICH, JACK BURKMAN | MAR 2, 2017

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Burkman

Born	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania^[1]
Nationality	American
Occupation	Conspiracy theorist, lobbyist
Known for	False claims against political figures
Website	behindthecurtainradio.com

jack Burkman is an American lobbyist and conspiracy theorist.^[2][3] Burkman drew significant media attention in 2014 for organizing a protest against the Dallas Cowboys of the NFL after the team signed Michael Sam, an openly gay football player, to its practice squad.^[4][5][6] He is also known for his involvement with far-right conspiracy theorist Jacob Wohl in multiple plots that attempted to frame public figures for fictitious sexual assaults, including in October 2018 against U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, in April 2019 against 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, and in April 2020 against White House Coronavirus Task Force member Anthony Fauci.^{[7][8][9][10]}

Burkman is the president of the lobbying firm Burkman Associates, LLC and the head of the conservative organization American Decency. He is the host of the Behind the Curtain podcast.

Life and education[

Burkman was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.^[1] He earned a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center.^[1]

Attempts to frame political figures:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

Robert Mueller[

On October 31, Burkman tweeted and Wohl retweeted that Parsons did not exist, denying involvement in the matter, and calling it "a hoax designed to distract the nation from [Burkman's] press conference" to be held the next day.^[11] Burkman denied knowing "Parsons", although The Atlantic noted that he posted a video on his Facebook page around the same time Taub and "Parsons" began to be contacted by Surefire Intelligence, asserting without evidence that Mueller "has a whole lifetime history of harassing women."^[8] Burkman tweeted that at the press conference he would "reveal the first of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's sex assault victims" and "prove that he is a drunk and a sexual abuser."^[12][13][14]

Wohl and Burkman convened a press conference outside Washington on November 1, ostensibly to present a woman who they said signed an affidavit, which The Gateway Pundit had published, accusing Mueller of raping her in a New York hotel room in 2010—on a date he was contemporaneously reported by the Washington Post to be serving jury duty in Washington.^[15] The men accused Mueller's office of "leaking" the eight year-old Post story to discredit their allegations. The purported accuser, Carolyne Cass, did not appear at the press conference as they had initially stated she would, and the men asserted she had panicked in fear of her life and taken a flight to another location.^[16][17]

Pete Buttigieg[

On April 22, 2019, Jack Burkman tweeted "2020 is shaping up to be more exciting than 2016. Looking like it will be Trump vs. Mayor Pete! Get the popcorn ready!"^[9]

Burkman and Wohl announced that they would be holding a press conference at Burkman's house on May 8 to continue their accusations against Buttigieg. On May 7, Burkman tweeted a link to an event called "Protest Against Homophobic Bigots" and wrote, "Hundreds of leftist protestors are set to descend on our Wednesday Press conference. We WILL NOT surrender to the mob. We’ve called in extra security to guard our safety and that of our partners in the media." The protest was discovered to be fake, organized by Wohl himself, when attendees received confirmation emails containing the email address wohlthinktank@gmail.com, which Wohl had used in the past.^[21] Mediaite noted that events may be registered with false contact information, but that Eventbrite would have emailed the address used by the organizer allowing them to delete or edit the event.^[22] However, Wohl denied involvement in creating the event page. Eventbrite later took down the event page citing their rules against "inauthentic content".^[21]

Anthony Fauci:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

In a late April 2020 press release, a woman claimed to have been sexually assaulted in 2014 by Dr. Anthony Fauci, a prominent member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Only The Daily Dot reported on the allegation, debunking it as a likely smear attempt.^[24] On May 2, 2020, the woman contacted *Reason Magazine* to confess that she and another woman had been paid by Burkman and Wohl to fabricate the allegations against Fauci. According to Reason, the woman contacted Burkman and Wohl and recorded their phone conversation. In that call, Wohl told her, "You did a good job, you got paid. What's the problem?" Burkman suggested that Fauci deserved the smear: "This guy shut the country down. He put 40 million people out of work. In a situation like that, you have to make up whatever you have to make up to stop that train and that's the way life works, OK? That's the way it goes... Mother Nature has to clean the barn every so often. How real is it? Who knows? So what if 1 percent of the population goes? So what if you lose 400,000 people? Two hundred thousand were elderly, the other 200,000 are the bottom of society. You got to clean out the barn. If it's real, it's a positive thing, for God's sake."^[10]

Others[

On October 1, 2019, Burkman and Jacob Wohl held a press conference on the front steps of Burkman's home in which they claimed to know the identity of the whistleblower who revealed possible impropriety by President Trump involving Ukraine, though they said they could not release it. The press conference was sparsely attended and described by The Washington Post as another in a series of events in which Burkman and Wohl "routinely announce they have discovered smoking-gun revelations against Trump’s rivals, then humiliate themselves when they fail to produce any evidence".^[25]

Other political activities[

In June 2016, Burkman held an event called "Lobbyists for Trump" and invited all major lobbyists of Washington, D.C. to help raise money for Donald Trump's presidential campaign.^[28][29] In July 2016, he helped fundraise for Free the Delegates, an anti-Trump effort to change the delegate rules for the 2016 Republican National Convention.^[30]

On March 19, 2020, Twitter suspended Burkman's account after he tweeted unevidenced claims about impending nationwide food shortages due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A Twitter spokesperson said the account had been suspended for repeated infractions of Twitter rules, including making false statements about COVID-19.^[31]

American Decency:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

Burkman heads the organization American Decency, a conservative organization that claims to have 3.62 million members, though this claim is unverified.^[32] The organization drew media attention in 2014 when Burkman announced plans to protest the Dallas Cowboys' signing of Michael Sam, the first publicly gay player to be drafted in the NFL.^[32][33][34] Burkman called for legislation that would prohibit homosexuals from playing in the NFL, though this proposed legislation was never formally introduced in the House of Representatives and never received a vote.^[35]

Seth Rich murder conspiracy theory[

Burkman started investigating the murder of Seth Rich in September 2016 after the Rich family accepted his**pro bono**public relations services.^[36] The Rich family and Burkman held a joint press conference about the murder in November 2016.^[36][37] In January 2017, Burkman launched an advertising campaign in Northwest D.C. searching for information regarding Rich's death. This included billboard advertisements and canvassing with flyers.^[38][39] In late February, Burkman started spreading conspiracy theories by telling media outlets that he had a lead that the Russian government was involved in Rich's death,^[40] and the Rich family distanced itself from Burkman.^[41]

In March 2017, Burkman started "The Profiling Project", an independent investigative attempt to solve the murder of Seth Rich with help from forensics students at George Washington University.^[42][43] He hired Kevin Doherty, a former U.S. Marine and special agent, to help with the project, although tensions developed when Burkman felt Doherty was speaking to reporters when he shouldn't have been and trying to take control of the project. In July 2017, Burkman fired Doherty and sent him a cease and desist letter. In March 2018, Doherty lured Burkman to a parking garage by claiming to have evidence of FBI misconduct. When Burkman arrived, Doherty shot him in the buttocks and thigh and hit him with an SUV, breaking Burkman's arm. Doherty was sentenced to nine years in prison.^[44]

References:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

^ :{Jump up to::(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a ^b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Burkman#cite_ref-About_1-1) ^c(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Burkman#cite_ref-About_1-2) Burkman, Jack. "About". Jack Burkman. Archived from the original on October 9, 2013. Retrieved September 5, 2014.
^ Prokop, Andrew (October 30, 2018). "The incredibly shoddy plot to smear Robert Mueller, explained". Vox. Retrieved November 1, 2018.
^ Cummings, William (October 31, 2018). "Jack Burkman: The conspiracy theorist accused of offering money for Mueller allegations". USA Today. Retrieved November 1, 2018.
^ Sieczkowski, Caven (September 4, 2014). "Anti-Gay Group To Protest Michael Sam, Cowboys In The Name Of 'Family Values:{':(style="padding-right:0.2em"):}:". Huffington Post. Retrieved September 5, 2014.
^ Voorhees, Josh (February 24, 2014). "Even the Conservative Lobbyist Hyping a Ban on Gay NFL Players Admits It's a PR Stunt". Slate. Retrieved September 5, 2014.
^ Prince, Jeff (September 4, 2014). "Thousands to Protest Cowboys, Michael Sam". Fort Worth Weekly. Retrieved September 5, 2014.
^ :{Jump up to::(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a ^b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Burkman#cite_ref-nbc_2018_10_30_7-1) Zadrozny, Brandy; Collins, Ben; Winter, Tom (October 30, 2018). "Mueller refers sex misconduct scheme targeting him to FBI for investigation". NBC News. Archived from the original on November 2, 2018. Retrieved February 12, 2019.
^ :{Jump up to::(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a ^b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Burkman#cite_ref-:1_8-1) ^c(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Burkman#cite_ref-:1_8-2) Bertrand, Natasha (October 30, 2018). "Mueller Wants the FBI to Look at a Scheme to Discredit Him". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on November 2, 2018. Retrieved November 3, 2018.
^ :{Jump up to::(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a ^b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Burkman#cite_ref-dailybeast_2019-04-29_9-1) ^c(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Burkman#cite_ref-dailybeast_2019-04-29_9-2) ^d(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Burkman#cite_ref-dailybeast_2019-04-29_9-3) Markay, Lachlan; Poulsen, Kevin; Schachtman, Noah (April 29, 2019). "Far-Right Smear Merchants Gin Up Bogus Sex Assault Claims Against Buttigieg". The Daily Beast. Retrieved April 29, 2019.
^ :{Jump up to::(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a ^b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Burkman#cite_ref-:2_10-1) Nancy, Rommelmann (May 7, 2020). "She Said Anthony Fauci Sexually Assaulted Her. Now She Says Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman Paid Her to Lie". Reason. Archived from the original on May 7, 2020. Retrieved May 7, 2020.
^ Nguyen, Tina (October 31, 2018). "How the Jacob Wohl Saga Explains What's Deranged About MAGA". The Hive. Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on January 17, 2019. Retrieved February 11, 2019.
^ Bertrand, Natasha (October 30, 2018). "Special Counsel Refers Scheme Targeting Mueller to FBI". The Atlantic. Retrieved October 30, 2018.
^ "Man Behind Alleged Robert Mueller Sex Assault Hoax: But What About Michael Avenatti?". lawandcrime.com. Retrieved 30 October2018.
^ Sommer, Lachlan Markay (30 October 2018). "Inside the Crazy Cabal Trying to Smear Robert Mueller". Retrieved 30 October 2018 – via www.thedailybeast.com.
^ Roberts, Roxanne; Argetsinger, Amy (April 13, 2010). "Reliable Source - Hey, isn't that...?: Robert Mueller summoned to jury duty; Rose McGowan visits the W". Washington Post. Retrieved November 8,2018.
^ Sommer, Will (November 1, 2018). "Mueller Smear Pushed by Pro-Trump Activists Falls Apart at Press Conference". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on November 2, 2018. Retrieved November 2, 2018.
^ Zadrozny, Brandy (November 1, 2018). "No proof, no victim at news conference alleging Mueller sex assaults". NBC News. Archivedfrom the original on November 1, 2018. Retrieved November 2, 2018.
^ :{Jump up to::(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a ^b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Burkman#cite_ref-advocate_2019-04-29_18-1) Stafford, Zach (April 29, 2019). "Pete Buttigieg Falsely Accused of Sexual Assault by Far-Right Catfish". The Advocate. Retrieved April 29, 2019.
^ Gilmour, David (2019-04-29). "Questions raised over Pete Buttigieg sexual assault allegation". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 2019-04-30.
^ Mirkinson, Jack. "World's Biggest Moron Appears to Have Done It Again". Splinter. Retrieved 2019-04-30.
^ :{Jump up to::(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a ^b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Burkman#cite_ref-dailybeast_2019-05-07_21-1) Sommer, Will (2019-05-07). "Jacob Wohl Caught Staging Fake Protest Against Himself". The Daily Beast. Retrieved May 7, 2019.
^ Duckham, Jacob (May 7, 2019). "Anti-Jacob Wohl Protest Tied to Jacob Wohl's Email Address". Mediaite. Retrieved May 8, 2019.
^ Sommer, Will (May 8, 2019). "Jacob Wohl Defends Tricking College Kid to Accuse Mayor Pete of Sexual Assault: He 'Got a Caramel Frappuccino:{':(style="padding-right:0.2em"):}:". The Daily Beast. Retrieved May 13, 2019.
^ Goforth, Claire (April 17, 2020). "Someone is spreading a sketchy sexual assault claim against Dr. Fauci". The Daily Dot. Retrieved May 7, 2020.
^ Selk, Avi (October 2, 2019). "A Trump booster promised to reveal the whistleblower's name from his front yard. The neighbors just laughed". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2019-10-02. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
^ Walker, James (October 3, 2019). "Jacob Wohl mocked after claiming Elizabeth Warren had affair with 24-year-old marine". Newsweek. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
^ {{Site web|url=https://twitter.com/jack_burkman/status/1182710482060435462?s=21
^ Catanese, David (May 16, 2016). "D.C. Lobbyists Look to Fund Trump". U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved January 18, 2017.
^ Morrongiello, Gabby (April 25, 2016). "Former critic plans 'Lobbyists for Trump' fundraiser". Washington Examiner. Retrieved April 30,2019.
^ Caldwell, Leigh Ann (July 10, 2016). "Anti-Trump Forces Unleash Plan to Pick Vice President at Convention". NBC News. Retrieved January 18, 2017.
^ Sommer, Will (March 19, 2020). "Twitter Suspends Conservative Huckster Jack Burkman Over Coronavirus Disinfo". The Daily Beast. Retrieved March 21, 2020.
^ :{Jump up to::(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a ^b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Burkman#cite_ref-LGBTQNation_32-1) "GOP lobbyist who wants to ban gays from NFL plans Dallas Cowboys protest". LGBTQ Nation. September 4, 2014. Retrieved April 30, 2019.
^ Fink, Jack (September 4, 2014). "Protests Planned Over Sam Joining Cowboys". CBS DFW. Retrieved September 5, 2014.
^ Selby, Jenn (September 5, 2014). "Michael Sam first openly gay NFL player: Christian lobby group of 'thousands' set to protest Dallas Cowboys latest signing". The Independent. Retrieved September 5,2014.
^ Suebsaeng, Asawin (October 1, 2017). "A Notorious, Seth Rich-Conspiracy Pushing, Lobbyist Troll is Paying Folks To Protest the DNC". The Daily Beast. Retrieved October 1, 2017.
^ :{Jump up to::(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a ^b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Burkman#cite_ref-shalby_36-1) Shalby, Colleen (May 24, 2017). "How Seth Rich's death became an Internet conspiracy theory". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 30, 2019.
^ Guttman, Nathan (March 4, 2017). "Seth Rich's Family Furious At Attorney For Claiming Russia Behind The Murder". The Forward. Retrieved May 27, 2017.
^ ":{':(style="padding-left:0.2em"):}:Who Murdered Seth Rich?': Billboards to be Posted in DC". WRC-TV. January 18, 2017. Retrieved May 27, 2017.
^. The Washington Post. May 11, 2017. Retrieved May 27, 2017 – via YouTube.
^ Guttman, Nathan (March 1, 2017). "Was Russia Behind Mystery Murder Of DNC Worker Seth Rich?". The Forward. Retrieved May 27,2017.
^ Kurzius, Rachel (March 2, 2017). ":{':(style="padding-left:0.2em"):}:It's Hurtful': Seth Rich's Family Responds To Latest Conspiracy Theory About His Murder". DCist. Archived from the original on July 14, 2017. Retrieved June 1, 2017.
^ Kurzius, Rachel (March 23, 2017). "GOP Lobbyist Now Opening 'War Room' Dedicated To Solving Seth Rich Murder". DCist. Archived from the original on April 8, 2017. Retrieved May 27, 2017.
^ Taylor, Scott (May 25, 2017). "EXCLUSIVE: A look inside 'Profiling Project: Seth Rich:{':(style="padding-right:0.2em"):}:". WJLA. Retrieved November 1, 2018.
^ Weiner, Rachel (December 3, 2018). "Ex-Marine admits he lured Seth Rich conspiracy theorist Jack Burkman to a hotel parking garage, then shot him". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 30, 2019.

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Categories:

https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/the-tale-of-a-right-wing-scam-artists-downward-trajectory

no lnx vid?

tale of a right-wing scam artist’s downward trajectory

Written by Roger Sollenberger / Salon June 5, 2020

I didn’t want to report this in the first person, but here we are.

Last week I received a press release from right-wing internet troll Jacob Wohl and his decades-older partner, conspiracy theorist Jack Burkman, announcing a stunt so outlandish it did not come close to the level of publication. I could track down only one other journalist who received the press release, and no one wrote about it.

Is there a common denominator? There is. In recent weeks, that other journalist, Jared Holt, and I have both published articles about Wohl’s looming trial for criminal securities fraud in California, as well as his liability for non-payment on a 2017 judgment in Arizona, which also involved securities violations.

Wohl and a former business partner pleaded not guilty to two counts of securities fraud this February in front of a judge in Riverside, California. Their trial has been extensively delayed, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic.

Additionally, the Arizona Corporation Commission — in conjunction with the Arizona attorney general’s office and legal counsel in California — is actively pursuing Wohl with regards to the $43,000 he still owes the state.

After I posted the second story to Twitter, a user comment pointed me to a since-deleted tweet from a woman named Kristin, who claimed to have worked with Wohl and Burkman on some of their infamously hapless public defamation stunts in the past.

For those unfamiliar with this sordid history, Wohl and Burkman have convinced, coerced and/or paid a number of real people to accuse their political enemies du jour of wrongdoing, most often in the form of absurd acts of sexual impropriety or assault in hotel rooms.

For instance, they accused former special counsel Robert Mueller of raping a woman in a New York hotel room in 2010. They claimed that Sen. Elizabeth Warren had carried on a BDSM-flavored extramarital affair with a young Marine in a Massachusetts Hilton in August 2018. They tricked a young man into signing an affidavit claiming that former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg sexually assaulted him at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington in 2019, an allegation the young man immediately recanted, saying that Wohl and Burkman had deceived him.

Most recently the duo appears to have paid a young woman thousands of dollars to accuse Dr. Anthony Fauci, the 79-year-old head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, of sexually assaulting her in a Baltimore hotel room in 2014.

Fabrications not confined to hotel rooms include Nancy Pelosi’s Percocet addiction and Sen. Ted Cruz’s “swinger” lifestyle.

None of those accusations, or any of the others, bear any known relationship to reality. Here’s a detailed rundown.link

But “Kristin,” the Twitter account, claimed that this rolling smear campaign was just a reality show. What’s more, they had actually recruited her, Kristin said, though she did not actually participate in any Wohl-Burkman scams.

In one tweet, Kristin wrote, “I have nothing but good things to say about them (and everything was platonic and I was treated well). People shouldn’t judge this girl for backing out because it’s a scary thing to do, nor should they make assumptions about Wohl and Burkman’s intentions.”

Kristin’s Twitter bio described her as a “Model, mom and paralegal. Marylander for life:)”. She had only one follower, and followed about 50 accounts, mostly right-wing media and political figures, including Jacob Wohl’s father, David.

Lo and behold, she had left her direct messages open, allowing anyone to contact her.

At this point I was already about 110% sure that Kristin was actually Jacob Wohl. I reached out.

“Can I get back to you on this?” Kristin replied.

“Sure,” I said. “When’s a good time, do you think?”

“As soon as I figure out how I’m going to handle everything,” she said.

“OK,” I responded. “Let me know.”

I didn’t hear anything until the next day, when Kristin returned to say, “OK, I’ll talk with you. Do you have a number? I had to talk with my lawyers first and decide if I should come out with everything.”

Kristin gave me her number, but I hadn’t seen the new messages. She found my phone number online and called me that night — definitely a woman’s voice. I couldn’t talk, but we set another time.

My wife is a politics hound who also follows Wohl, so I thought she’d get a kick out of this strange tale. I assumed, egotistically, that the whole thing was some weird Wohlian attempt to sting me or weave me into their next farce.

When she saw Kristin’s profile picture, though, her mouth dropped: My wife knew Kristin, who was a real person. They both went to suburban Maryland high schools and had 53 Facebook friends in common, including her closest friends.

Kristin’s full name is Kristin Spealman, and her Twitter bio is accurate: She’s a single mom, a model and paralegal living in Maryland. At various points, she has also been Nancy Pelosi’s drug dealer and Ted Cruz’s concubine.

Spealman told me in a phone call that Burkman cold-called her last September, havingfound her through a local modeling agency.

“He said he worked with Spike TV,” she said. “He said he wanted to meet me. He wanted to talk about this reality show.”

Spealman said she agreed to meet Burkman and Wohl for dinner and drinks at Morton’s Steakhouse in Bethesda, Maryland. Burkman sent a limo. Spealman said she had filet mignon, Burkman had salmon, and Jacob, at the time on a carnivore diet he has since abandoned, had a porterhouse steak — “and gave me his asparagus.”

“We all drank a bit,” she added. Burkman paid with an American Express “Black” card, she said.

At that dinner, Burkman seemed in charge. “I thought Jacob was Jack’s intern at first,” she said. “Just the way he was ordering the limos, stuff like that.” (Spealman shared pictures of what she characterized as her contemporaneous notes, with a ? under the name “Jacob.”)

“There are only like four good-looking girls in D.C.,” she recalls Burkman saying to her. “They were saying they wanted to make me the star of season one of their new reality show.”

The show, she said, would be called“Project 1599,” the street number of Burkman’s home in Arlington, Virginia.The moniker is also his apparently now-prohibited Twitter handle. Burkman was suspended from the site earlier this year for spreading harmful misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic. Wohl’s official account was suspended what feels like ages ago.

“Project 1599,” she said, was to be billed as something like a sensationalized political version of the celebrity prank show “Punk’d.” They told her it would air on Spike TV, a network that no longer existed at the time — it had disappeared the year before and re-emerged as the Paramount Network.

(Project 1599 was also the name of the entity that emailed me the recent press release.)

Spealman recalled that Burkman told her she stood to make between $200,000 and $300,000 for season one of Project 1599, which would be released in January 2020. She pointed out that if she became a big star, she would be useless as an incognito prankster. They told her they’d film everything beforehand.

It isn’t insane to entertain the idea that Wohl and Burkman at one point might have had something going at some level with someone at the Paramount Network. They made this same pitch about Spike TV to another recruit. Their accusations against political figures are so ridiculous, and their press conferences so clownish and cheekily scripted, that it seems like reality TV already. They’re clearly in on the joke, on some level.

On another level, of course, there’s no joke for anybody to be “in on.”

At any rate, Spealman signed on. The trio met a few more times, always in the D.C. area and, perhaps in keeping — consciously or otherwise — with a running theme of the smears, always in hotel rooms. Wohl, she said, had a room that he liked at the W. But there were no more meals, she says, only vodka drinks, which were always provided at those afternoon meet-ups.

“Jacob did more of the talking after that,” she said. “And the story soon became that I would come out and say that I was selling painkillers to Nancy Pelosi.”

“I was shocked,” Spealman said. “I was like, ‘Look, I thought this was a different kind of show.’ They asked me to lose weight, to get down to 96 pounds — I’m 103, but they wanted me down to 96, to do talk shows like Ellen DeGeneres.”

Spealman’s idea of stardom was not to appear at a press conference falsely claiming to have sold lethal doses of opioids to the 79-year-old speaker of the House. Burkman offered to talk to any judges for her, should any lawsuits ensue, but she declined.

“That’s when they changed it to the affair with Ted Cruz,” she said. “Which I was also supposed to do.”

They picked Cruz, she said, because the purported reality show’s purported producers wanted to make sure the attacks were not all against Democrats.

“I have lawyers,” Spealman said. “My friends are lawyers, I am a part-time paralegal. I was worried about lawsuits, you know? I expressed that to them and they said ‘This is political satire. If you really feel uncomfortable, in a few weeks you can just come out and say this was all a fake thing.'”

“They said it was performance art,” she said. “So it’s free speech.”

To assure her, she said, Wohl and Burkman offered to make an audio recording of her agreeing to “do something” for money. That way, they said, she’d have evidence it was fake.

It’s unclear whether Wohl and Burkman still have that recording. Neither would comment.

“Jacob was the main manipulator,” Spealman said. “But both were very aggressive.”

She feels intimidated by the duo to this day, and would not readily talk about anything beyond the events of last fall.

Burkman and Wohl scheduled a press conference for mid-October, and on Oct. 16 Spealman went to Burkman’s duplex-style house in Arlington to go over the script.

“When I got there to work on the script, it said at the top, ‘Affidavit of Kristin Spealman.’ That threw me off because I thought it was supposed to be a script,” she said. “I took pics of it, and that made them uncomfortable but I said I needed them to rehearse.”

She later showed those photos to her lawyers, she said, who “freaked out.”

At the rehearsal, Spealman said, Wohl showed her a check for $150,000, which he said would be hers if she went through with the lie as scripted — a claim corroborated by what she said were contemporaneous notes, which she shared in another picture.

Spealman said it appeared to be a business check, not a personal check, but Wohl only briefly allowed her to look at it.

She also shared her photos of the “script,” which is labeled “statement of fact and belief” and, except for the name, is identical to the one they later distributed at the press conference.

In an aside, Spealman noted that Burkman’s dog — a chocolate-colored dachshund named Jack Jr. — took a shine to her.

“Jack said that Jack Jr. doesn’t like many people,” said Spealman, who is blonde. “He told me it must be my Aryan blood.”

“It was weird,” she added. (Conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, who claims to be half-Jewish and who made an appearance at the Cruz-themed press event staged by Wohl and Burkman — both Jewish — had threatened to kill Jack Jr. earlier this year; Spealman says she never met him.)

Spealman says she told Burkman via text that she was backing out. He called her dozens of times, she said, saying, “This is your big shot.”

“But I never said I wanted a big shot,” she told me.

They rescheduled the press conference, Spealman said — disappointing a gaggle of bored and cynical journalists — swapping her out for “another model in Virginia,” from her same agency, who read the same script, though she used an assumed name.

But then there’s this observation from that same Wohl press event, as noted by journalist Molly Jong-Fast: “Across the street was a documentary film crew who wouldn’t tell me anything about themselves. They were probably just following some sort of Prime Directive where they didn’t want to tarnish the art by becoming part of it. Who can say.”

Spealman saw Wohl again after that, she says, at the Nov. 7 opening for a club called Pandora, which Spealman had brought Wohl in to promote. That’s documented in an Instagram photo.

At the end of that conversation, Kristin leveled with me: She had known we had friends in common, and yes, she knew my wife, though not very well.

Here is why I wanted to write this in the first person.

When Wohl and Burkman accused Robert Mueller of raping a woman in New York, Brett Kavanaugh and Roy Moore were in the headlines. Wohl went to great lengths to try to bait reporters into covering his bogus claims about Mueller, which appeared to be a media honey-trap as much as anything else.

In other words, I’m reluctant to give these guys attention, but at the same time I couldn’t be sure this wasn’t worth writing about, because, as I learned, another smear might be in the works. Allegedly.

Of course the existence of a smear doesn’t mean it is worth covering. But the credible prospect of a possible unlawful future action is another matter.

Still, I wondered if Wohl was setting me up — a thought I relished, until I learned Kristin and my wife had so many connections, which turned my eagerness to a combination of concern and confusion.

Around the same time I contacted Kristin, I received Twitter messages from an account calling itself “Blackbird Consulting,” which had two followers and claimed to be enforcing collection actions against Wohl.

That account has since been suspended. A Twitter spokesperson did not immediately reply to questions about the circumstances.

As for that “model in Virginia” — I found her. Her name is Kylie Garcia-Andrews. She told me in a phone call that Wohl and Burkman had paid her $700 cash to sing the national anthem at an Oct. 9, 2019, press event where Wohl and Burkman trotted out a young man to accuse Sen. Kamala Harris of adultery.

Garcia-Andrews deleted an old Instagram post that linked to that performance — and hashtagged Spike TV.

But despite looking exactly like the woman who took Spealman’s place at the Cruz event, Garcia-Andrews says she was not that woman. Spealman says she was, and here is a video of Wohl calling that woman “Kylie.”

Ford Fischer, an independent journalist and prolific Wohl watcher whose video was linked in the above Instagram post, told me that Garcia-Andrews had friended him last October on Facebook.

“I didn’t know who she was relative to Facebook, but from the bit we talked it seems she was actually at Wohl’s pressers twice: once to sing the anthem, and once as a ‘Ted Cruz accuser,'” he told me, sharing a screenshot that showed they became Facebook friends on Oct. 15, smack in the middle of the Kamala Harris and Ted Cruz events.

“Kylie is a more common name than you may realize,” Kylie told me in a text message denying her involvement in the Cruz stunt. “I mean kylie Jenner has her name on literally everything. It still doesn’t prove its me.” [sic]

The rest of this gets even muddier than what you’ve read already. I feel obligated to report what I was told on the record because it regards potential unlawful conduct involving a public figure. Or so I’m told. But here it is, deconflicted as best as possible.

Spealman, who shared a text-message conversation showing she had been in touch with Wohl as recently as this spring, told me that Wohl and Burkman had been planning “an ongoing thing” with Garcia-Andrews.

“She still does stuff with them,” Spealman said.

Spealman did not feel comfortable detailing what she knew, she said, in part because “it would ruin something they’re doing in the future.” She says she decided to come forward because she wants to distance herself from Wohl and Burkman after experiencing harassment online, while making clear she holds no bad feelings against them

She said she had originally been “asked to be involved” in Wohl and Burkman’s new stunt, adding, “What’s to come is even worse.”

“There’s something ongoing with that doctor at the White House,” Spealman said, evidently meaning Fauci. Wohl and Burkman’s attempted smear of Fauci, earlier this year drew press coverage from only one outlet, and was almost immediately debunked by the woman they paid to carry it out.

Or so it seemed: Spealman told me the whole confession was fake, a setup for a journalist.

After our phone conversation last week, Spealman called Burkman. She says she also tried Wohl, who did not answer.

Following her conversation with Burkman, Spealman told me that Garcia-Andrews said she didn’t want me to write about her because, she claimed, a murderer was after her.

For her part, Garcia-Andrews rejected Spealman’s claim that she was involved in a new “project” with Burkman and Wohl. “They seem shady,” Garcia-Andrews said. “They don’t seem like the best types of guys, so I don’t want to be associated with them.”

Spealman echoed those concerns. “I’m worried about them blackmailing me,” she said. “Jacob created an audio recording of us in a conversation when they offered me $25,000 to do something — I don’t remember what.” She’s worried he may leak that recording to smear her in the press. She also claims to have received ominous phone calls after we began talking — “People breathing into the phone and hanging up” — and believes her computer was hacked.

All things considered, though, there is something strikingly unfair about the position these two women find themselves in, it seems to me. The targets of Wohl and Burkman’s defamatory attacks can afford to ignore them. But the men and women coerced or conscripted to do their dirty work are almost powerless.

But as another Wohl pawn Diane Andrade recently made clear, even if fraudulently, as Spealman claims, they do hold an ace: information.

Spealman said that, depending on what happens after this article is published, she and Kylie might decide to start talking about the other things they know, which, she assures me, are much worse.

She shared some text messages with Wohl about the press release I mentioned above, which I will not be reporting on. She says the subject of that press release is not the same as the alleged new plot they tried to convince her to join.

I find Spealman more credible than Wohl or Burkman, but am also wary of giving them more oxygen for any reason, or playing even a small role in furthering their game.

In 2019, the Daily Beast obtained a document from January of that year showing thatWohl had created a group called the Arlington Center for Political Intelligence, whose purpose, he said, would be to “make shit up” about candidates and public figures in order to manipulate political betting markets and seek to suppress Democratic turnout in 2020.

First Amendment attorney Anne Champion told me, “It would appear that the premise of this company amounts to wire fraud.”

Wohl was soliciting $1 million to fund the project. His smears — and promises of major payouts — kicked into high gear that fall. As his trial date for defrauding investors now approaches, they might kick in again. It is unclear what returns any Arlington Center investors might see or expect at this point, several months ahead of a presidential election.

As for the alleged plot looming on the horizon, Spealman and Garcia-Andrews seem to agree on one thing: The new project, whatever it is — if it ever existed — is now, thanks apparently to my one week of investigation, moribund. So there’s no need to worry about it, whatever it was.

Spokespeople for Dr. Fauci, Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Harris, Sen. Warren and Sen. Cruz all declined to comment, as did a former spokesperson for Robert Mueller’s office, the FBI, and multiple spokespeople for Paramount Networks.

Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman declined to comment, and would not acknowledge that they knew the women.

links?

...last week I received a press release from right-wing internet troll Jacob Wohl and his decades-older partner, conspiracy theorist Jack Burkman, announcing a stunt so outlandish it did not come close to the level of publication. I could track down only one other journalist who received the press release, and no one wrote about it.

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For instance, they accused former special counsel Robert Mueller of raping a woman in a New York hotel room in 2010. They claimed that Sen. Elizabeth Warren had carried on a BDSM-flavored extramarital affair with a young Marine in a Massachusetts Hilton in August 2018. They tricked a young man into signing an affidavit claiming that former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg sexually assaulted him at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington in 2019, an allegation the young man immediately recanted, saying that Wohl and Burkman had deceived him.

Fabrications not confined to hotel rooms include Nancy Pelosi’s Percocet addiction and Sen. Ted Cruz’s “swinger” lifestyle.

None of those accusations, or any of the others, bear any known relationship to reality. Here’s a detailed rundown.

Lo and behold, she had left her direct messages open, allowing anyone to contact her.

At this point I was already about 110% sure that Kristin was actually Jacob Wohl. I reached out.

“Can I get back to you on this?” Kristin replied.

“Sure,” I said. “When’s a good time, do you think?”

“As soon as I figure out how I’m going to handle everything,” she said.

“OK,” I responded. “Let me know.”

When she saw Kristin’s profile picture, though, her mouth dropped: My wife knew Kristin,who was a real person. They both went to suburban Maryland high schools and had 53 Facebook friends in common, including her closest friends.

Spealman told me in a phone call that Burkman cold-called her last September, having found her through a local modeling agency.

“He said he worked with Spike TV,” she said. “He said he wanted to meet me. He wanted to talk about this reality show.”

Spealman said she agreed to meet Burkman and Wohl for dinner and drinks at Morton’s Steakhouse in Bethesda, Maryland. Burkman sent a limo. Spealman said she had filet mignon, Burkman had salmon, and Jacob, at the time on a carnivore diet, had a porterhouse steak — “and gave me his asparagus.”

“We all drank a bit,” she added. Burkman paid with an American Express “Black” card, she said.

“There are only like four good-looking girls in D.C.,” she recalls Burkman saying to her. “They were saying they wanted to make me the star of season one of their new reality show.”

The show, she said, would be called “Project 1599,” the street number of Burkman’s home in Arlington, Virginia. The moniker is also his apparently now-prohibited Twitter handle. Burkman was suspended from the site earlier this year for spreading harmful misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic. Wohl’s official account was suspended what feels like ages ago.

(Project 1599 was also the name of the entity that emailed me the recent press release.)

On another level, of course, there’s no joke for anybody to be “in on.”

“Jacob did more of the talking after that,” she said. “And the story soon became that I would come out and say that I was selling painkillers to Nancy Pelosi.”

“That’s when they changed it to the affair with Ted Cruz,” she said. “Which I was also supposed to do.”

They picked Cruz, she said, because the purported reality show’s purported producers wanted to make sure the attacks were not all against Democrats.

“They said it was performance art,” she said. “So it’s free speech.”

To assure her, she said, Wohl and Burkman offered to make an audio recording of her agreeing to “do something” for money. That way, they said, she’d have evidence it was fake.

It’s unclear whether Wohl and Burkman still have that recording. Neither would comment.

“Jacob was the main manipulator,” Spealman said. “But both were very aggressive.”

She feels intimidated by the duo to this day, and would not readily talk about anything beyond the events of last fall.

Burkman and Wohl scheduled a press conference for mid-October, and on Oct. 16 Spealman went to Burkman’s duplex-style house in Arlington to go over the script.

She later showed those photos to her lawyers, she said, who “freaked out.”

Spealman said it appeared to be a business check, not a personal check, but Wohl only briefly allowed her to look at it.

She also shared her photos of the “script,” which is labeled “statement of fact and belief” and, except for the name, is identical to the one they later distributed at the press conference.

In an aside, Spealman noted that Burkman’s dog — a chocolate-colored dachshund named Jack Jr. — took a shine to her.

“Jack said that Jack Jr. doesn’t like many people,” said Spealman, who is blonde. “He told me it must be my Aryan blood.”

Spealman says she told Burkman via text that she was backing out. He called her dozens of times, she said, saying, “This is your big shot.”

“But I never said I wanted a big shot,” she told me.

Spealman saw Wohl again after that, she says, at the Nov. 7 opening for a club called Pandora, which Spealman had brought Wohl in to promote. That’s documented in an Instagram photo.

At the end of that conversation, Kristin leveled with me: She had known we had friends in common, and yes, she knew my wife, though not very well.

Here is why I wanted to write this in the first person.

Of course the existence of a smear doesn’t mean it is worth covering. But the credible prospect of a possible unlawful future action is another matter.

Still, I wondered if Wohl was setting me up — a thought I relished, until I learned Kristin and my wife had so many connections, which turned my eagerness to a combination of concern and confusion.

That account has since been suspended. A Twitter spokesperson did not immediately reply to questions about the circumstances.

Garcia-Andrews deleted an old Instagram post that linked to that performance — and hashtagged Spike TV.....[pix tt?]

ut despite looking exactly like the woman who took Spealman’s place at the Cruz event, Garcia-Andrews says she was not that woman. Spealman says she was, and here is a video of Wohl calling that woman “Kylie.”

Ford Fischer, an independent journalist and prolific Wohl watcher whose video was linked in the above Instagram post, told me that Garcia-Andrews had friended him last October on Facebook.

“She still does stuff with them,” Spealman said.

She said she had originally been “asked to be involved” in Wohl and Burkman’s new stunt, adding, “What’s to come is even worse.”

Or so it seemed: Spealman told me the whole confession was fake, a setup for a journalist.

After our phone conversation last week, Spealman called Burkman. She says she also tried Wohl, who did not answer.

Following her conversation with Burkman, Spealman told me that Garcia-Andrews said she didn’t want me to write about her because, she claimed, a murderer was after her.

Spealman echoed those concerns. “I’m worried about them blackmailing me,” she said. “Jacob created an audio recording of us in a conversation when they offered me $25,000 to do something — I don’t remember what.” She’s worried he may leak that recording to smear her in the press. She also claims to have received ominous phone calls after we began talking — “People breathing into the phone and hanging up” — and believes her computer was hacked.

But as another Wohl pawn Diane Andrade recently made clear, even if fraudulently, as Spealman claims, they do hold an ace: information.

Spealman said that, depending on what happens after this article is published, she and Kylie might decide to start talking about the other things they know, which, she assures me, are much worse.

I find Spealman more credible than Wohl or Burkman, but am also wary of giving them more oxygen for any reason, or playing even a small role in furthering their game.

In 2019, the Daily Beast obtained a document from January of that year showing that Wohl had created a group called the Arlington Center for Political Intelligence, whose purpose, he said, would be to “make shit up” about candidates and public figures in order to manipulate political betting markets and seek to suppress Democratic turnout in 2020.

First Amendment attorney Anne Champion told me, “It would appear that the premise of this company amounts to wire fraud.”

Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman declined to comment, and would not acknowledge that they knew the women

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/these-documents-are-a-likely-source-of-jacob-wohls-legal-troubles/

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/arizona-may-jail-right-wing-fraudster-who-accused-democrats-of-sexual-assault/

[Right-wing political operatives Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl pitch reporters their latest far-fetched scandal on a balcony outside the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Feb. 27, 2020. (Photo: Jared Holt)]

Like bees to honey, the pro-Trump fringe descended on this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference outside of the nation’s capital of Washington, D.C., in hopes of stealing a sliver of the spotlight for themselves.

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and a cohort of his Infowars employees roamed the conference’s exhibition hall and the escalators on their way to radio row, attracting a crowd of star-struck attendees with their cell phones hoisted above their heads to get video of Jones. Right Wing Watch asked Jones for his thoughts on the new coronavirus now spreading around the world, a subject that Vice President Mike Pence had directly addressed on the CPAC main stage hours earlier.

“We know it’s a manmade bioweapon, produced by the U.S. government, sold to China in 2015. That was in theJournal of Science.That’s why we got a bit concerned about it. It’s a chimera cross-viral species system,” Jones said, going on to argue that the U.S. should restrict travel from China.

Right Wing Watch was unable to track down a Journal of Science article that made that assertion, which was recentlyfloated by Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, as well. According to The New York Times, former White House strategist Steve Bannon is also a purveyor of the theory, which is widely disavowed by scientists.

[Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones rides an escalator to radio row at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference on Feb. 27, 2020. (Photo: Jared Holt)]

Jones told journalists at CPAC that he felt at home with CPAC attendees, “But the Republican establishment, I don’t feel at home with them. But we’re here to let them know that we’re taking the Republican party over.”

:{On a terrace overlooking the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center lobby, Republican political personalitiesJacob Wohland Jack Burkman hosted a press conference, as they did last year. In the audience, far-right political entertainer Gavin McInnes, who founded the Proud Boys hate group, accosted reporters. McInnes was later}:{. One attendee told Right Wing Watch they reported McInnes to security after McInnes threatened to assault them. A request for information from CPAC about McInnes’ ejection was not immediately returned.}:

Laura Loomer, anti-Muslim activistwho is pursuing a bid for Congress in Florida, was spotted around CPAC touting her campaign. Last year, Loomer had her media credentials revoked and was removed from CPAC after harassing journalists in the media filing center; this year she donned standard attendee credentials.

But white nationalist organization leader Patrick Casey never made it past the conference center’s front door, according to a post in his Telegram chat channel. On days that the vice president or president speaks at CPAC, guards at the doors of the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center require conference credentials or hotel room keys to enter the building. Casey falsely claimed to his followers that the policy was new for this year.

Tags: Alex Jones Gavin McInnes Jack Burkman Jacob Wohl Laura Loomer Patrick Casey CPAC 2020 Identity Evropa InfoWar

Far-right grifters Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman have pushed a number of conspiracy theories previously; recently they failed in trying to smear special counsel Robert Mueller.

The Daily Beast reported that the man purportedly behind allegations against South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg came forward to say that the entire thing was actually the idea of Wohl and Burkman and that all the allegations were false: "Kelly said he expressed concerns about the scheme but Wohl told him to sleep on it. When Kelly woke at around 11 in the morning, Wohl 'was already dressed in a suit because he "can’t do a Monday if he isn’t in a suit”' and—of more significance—the fabricated statement had been posted to Medium, along with fake Twitter and Gmail accounts in Kelly’s name. According to Kelly, Burkman tried to calm his nerves by claiming that he was a '"star"’ and people are eating me up.' The trio, according to Kelly, ate Subway sandwiches, during which Kelly continued to express his regrets. Burkman and Wohl tried to calm him down by promising to purchase 'any house I wanted' and insisting that his family would 'get over it.'"

In the short time before Wohl allegedly posted the vague accusations online and the real Kelly came forward to dispute them, far-right media ran with them -- despite no actual evidence whatsoever. Not only did a number of far-right digital outlets run with it, but Trump-favorite cable news station OANN did as well. OANN later covered the collapse of the smear, saying it made no sense -- never mentioning that it had covered the smear a day prior.

https://thinkprogress.org/cpac-tries-to-circle-the-wagons-against-the-far-right-60408d44e7df/

no lnx

CPAC tries to circle the wagons against the far-right

Far-right grifters were kept at arm's length, but a few still managed to sneak in.

LUKE BARNES

MAR 2, 2019, 11:13 AM

NATIONAL HARBOR, MD — In 2019, CPAC seems to have gone out of its way to put on a drab, non-controversial conservative show.

There was none of the drama of 2017, when far-right troll Milo Yiannopoulos was disinvited just days before the event after a video of him condoning pedophilia emerged, and when neo-Nazi Richard Spencer roamed the CPAC halls rubbing shoulders with younger attendees.

This year, by contrast, a collection of white nationalists, far-right grifters and conspiracy theorists were kept at an arms’ length and mostly had to be content with roaming the Gaylord Hotel outside of the convention. Many were initially denied passes, but managed to wangle their way inside, although they had to be content themselves with posting about CPAC on Twitter, rather than having direct contact with attendees.

Among those spotted was Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist podcaster who lurked around the edges of CPAC like a vulture. Faith Goldy, a white nationalist who ran for mayor of Toronto in 2018 — getting 3.4 percent of the vote — was also present. Patrick Casey, the executive director of the far-right group Identity Evropa, tried to get into CPAC before being informed that his pass had been canceled. Casey then promptly launched into an angry tweetstorm about how CPAC wasn’t a forum for real conservatives anyway.

Certainly the most amusing example of the far-right and its associated grifters attempting to get some form of CPAC cred occurred on Thursday afternoon, when noted pro-Trump trolls Laura Loomer and Jacob Wohl — both of whom were also denied their in their initial attempts to get into CPAC — held a “press conference” along with conservative lobbyist Jack Burkman to outline another set of spurious, unsubstantiated allegations, this time against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).

The event rapidly devolved into farce, with Wohl talking over Loomer every time she tried to speak about her supposed “censoring” on social media, and journalists asking why a document marked “Strictly Private and Confidential” was being distributed to the public.

Wohl and Goldy were later spotted chatting to each other at CPAC, but wearing attendee and not media badges. It is not immediately clear why Wohl especially was allowed in, after being so pointedly denied entry earlier in the day.

Later that night Wohl made an appearance at an afterparty hosted by Turning Points USA, the conservative student group, which featured Donald Trump, Jr. and TPUSA leader Charlie Kirk. Among the (mostly college-aged) revelers was Enrique Tarrio, current leader of the far-right Proud Boys gang was also spotted roaming the halls.

On Friday, two members of the Proud Boys in New York City pled guilty to charges stemming from a fight outside the New York Metropolitan Republican club in 2018, where the Proud Boys viciously attacked counter-protesters.

But CPAC’s shooing away of far-right personalities, at least superficially, isn’t the sign of some conservative bulwark against far-right ideas.

Instead, CPAC this year has morphed into a celebration of Trumpism, not conservatism, and all the vitriol that comes along with it.

On Friday, for instance, Breitbart writer Michelle Malkin blamed moderate Republicans, including the “ghost of John McCain” for being in bed with “immigration saboteurs.” The crowd guffawed uproariously.

burkman

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