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. [He] offered to pay off all of my credit card debt, plus bring me a check for $20,000 if I would do it. He knew exactly how much credit card debt I had, right down to the dollar, which sort of freaked me out.
That’s from a letter penned by a woman who used to work as a paralegal for Special Counsel Robert Mueller at the Pillsbury, Madison, and Sutro law firm in 1974.
The letter in question was sent to journalists in an e-mail, which was then turned over to the Special Counsel’s office. On Tuesday afternoon, the Atlantic’s Natasha Bertrand reported that the Special Counsel’s office has referred the matter to the FBI.
According to the letter, the man who made the offer had “a British accent” and claimed to work for Jack Burkman, who the woman described as “some sort of politics guy in Washington”.
It probably won’t surprise you to learn that Burkman is famous for pushing conspiracy theories. At one point, for instance, he launched his own investigation into the murder of Seth Rich.
To say that didn’t go well would be an understatement. Ultimately, Burkman ended up getting shot in the butt (literally) by a former Marine named Kevin Doherty who he (Burkman) hired to assist him in his investigation. After the two clashed over who should be in charge of the private probe, Burkman sent Doherty a cease and desist letter, but Doherty did not cease and desist. Instead, he posed as a senior FBI official with knowledge of the internal probe into Andrew McCabe. Burkman bought the story hook, line and sinker. Doherty proceeded to lead him on, leaving bundles of e-mails under a cone in a garage at the Key Bridge Marriott in Rosslyn. I’m going to let the Washington Post explain the rest:
The last drop was supposed to be “the big one” – the full inspector general report on McCabe, which still has not been released. Instead, when Burkman bent over to pull the papers out from under the cone, he was shot in the buttocks and thigh. As he ran out of the garage with his dachshund in his arms, he was hit by an SUV.
He said the car backed up to hit him again.
“It looked like he was coming to kill me,” Burkman said. But he said a woman watching from a window of the hotel screamed. A guard came running and the SUV sped off, Burkman said.
Burkman spent three days in the hospital. His dog, Jack Jr., was uninjured.
The above-mentioned Natasha Bertrand reminds you that Burkman has also embarked on a number of other insane crusades. At one point, for example, he took the unusual step of penning a piece of legislation aimed at banning gay men from playing in the NFL. That, despite the fact that he is most assuredly not a member of Congress.
Burkman also launched a fundraising operation to help Paul Manafort associate Rick Gates pay his legal fees. Sometime in and around the Gates fundraising effort, Burkman claimed he was assaulted in front of his home by a guy wearing a mask who, according to an official statement, “doused [Burkman] with a type of pepper spray, struck him in the head, then sped off” in a black SUV.
So, if you’re wondering whether it’s at least possible that the woman quoted here at the outset is telling the truth about being approached by a man with a “British accent” offering $20,000 for unfounded claims against Robert Mueller on behalf of Jack Burkman, the answer is: It wouldn’t be the craziest thing Jack Burkman has ever done.
Well, what about Jack? Does he have anything to say about all of this? The answer is, unfortunately, “yes”. Here’s Burkman, on Facebook (which should probably just go ahead and ban him) explaining how Mueller “carries around a flask” and is an “old school drunk”:
He also tweeted this today:
Some sad news. On Thursday, November 1, at the Rosslyn
Holiday Inn at noon, we will reveal the first of Special Counsel Robert
Mueller's sex assault victims. I applaud the courage and dignity and
grace and strength of my client. pic.twitter.com/wZVQeHD45r— Jack Burkman (@Jack_Burkman) October 30, 2018
Since Bertrand broke the story, Newsweek has followed up, writing the following:
Burkman’s claims are being made after numerous journalists, including two reporters from Newsweek, received emails from a woman allegedly named Lorraine Parsons who claimed that an associate of Burkman’s had offered to pay off her late husband’s credit card debt and give her a check for $20,000 if she falsely accused the special counsel of sexual assault.
The person writing the email claimed to have worked briefly with Mueller at a law firm in the 1970s and said that she rebuffed the offer to make false claims in exchange for money.
“I was contacted via phone call by a man named Bill Christensen, who had a British accent, and said that he would like to ask me a couple of questions about Robert Mueller, whom I worked with when I was a paralegal for Pillsbury, Madison, and Sutro in 1974 (now called Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman),” the email, received by Newsweek on October 18, read.
The person writing the email declined to speak with Newsweek reporters on the phone and failed to provide any evidence of his or her correspondence with Christensen. On Tuesday, as news broke that the special counsel’s office had referred the allegations of payments offered in exchange for false allegations to the FBI, a Newsweek reporter received an email with a screenshot of a conservation allegedly held between Parsons and the person offering her money.
Burkman spoke to Rolling Stone on Tuesday afternoon, claiming that the Special Counsel’s decision to turn this over to the FBI is a “House of Cards episode” and “silliness layered on silliness layered on silliness.” He went on to say “there’s no truth to the claim we paid anyone”. Burkman says he has no idea who British “Bill” is either.
Obviously, this is a complete and total farce and if Jack Burkman was looking for some publicity, he’s about to get it, because it now seems likely that the FBI is going to be asking him some questions.
On the bright side for Jack, these FBI agents will be real, which means they won’t shoot him the buttocks in an abandoned parking garage on the way to running him over as he flees screaming from the scene carrying his (uninjured) dachshund.
Read more
Jacob Wohl Implicated In Jack Burkman Scheme To Pay Women For False Mueller Accusations
