Desperate times

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 [money] “to make accusations of sexual misconduct and workplace harassment against Robert Mueller.”

[...]

The woman told reporters in an email, a copy of which I obtained, that she was contacted by a man “with a British accent” who wanted to ask her “a couple questions about Robert Mueller, whom I worked with when I was a paralegal for Pillsbury, Madison, and Sutro in 1974. I asked him who he was working for, and he told me his boss was some sort of politics guy in Washington named Jack Burkman.” 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, noting that the man “knew exactly how much credit card debt I had, right down to the dollar, which sort of freaked me out.”

[...]

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 an emailed statement, Burkman denied knowing the woman who originally alerted journalists to the alleged scheme [...] He added in a separate 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.” [...] Burkman, a conservative radio host, is known for spreading conspiracy theories.

  The Atlantic

As Charlie Pierce periodically says, "And Robert Mueller, with no expression on his face, reaches across his desk for another document."

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Add another one:





And, here's another crazy story from this same investigation:




Ay-yi-yi.

UPDATE: