During that dark chapter of American history, Senator Joseph McCarthy abused the awesome powers won during Teapot Dome to smear hundreds of American servicemen, civil servants and ordinary citizens through secret proceedings, selective leaks and crass bullying. He also branded those who invoked their constitutional rights not to testify as “Fifth Amendment Communists.” These disgraceful tactics ended in McCarthy’s own disgrace after he was censured by the Senate in 1954.
McCarthy would cheer the methods of today’s Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee. They have conducted much of their business through so-called confidential interviews and depositions that are not public, binding witnesses to silence while lawmakers leak selectively from the testimony.
Republicans have used this practice to wreck reputations and careers. They have gratuitously exposed the private lives of dedicated civil servants. They have deprived Americans of some of the nation’s most dogged, experienced crime fighters, falsely accusing whistle-blowers of criminal wrongdoing and mocking their invocation of constitutional rights.
A senior F.B.I. lawyer, Lisa Page, was forced to resign after being pilloried by House Republicans. A senior F.B.I. counterintelligence agent, Peter Strzok, was fired for his texts with Ms. Page, but not before enduring crude questioning about his personal life by a Republican congressman, Louie Gohmert. Committee attacks on Bruce Ohr led to his removal as associate deputy attorney general. His wife, Nellie, a former contractor for us, was subjected to the misogyny of the president.
Finally, there is the constant pleas from Mr. Trump and his allies on the Hill for criminal investigations of those who have tried to raise the alarm about Russia. The low: Senators Charles Grassley and Lindsey Graham referring Mr. Steele to the Justice Department to investigate if he “lied” to the F.B.I., a false allegation made to discredit a long-valued bureau source.
One of the most astonishing recent examples of the House Judiciary Committee’s character assassination involves Republican leaks to conservative news outlets of the closed-door testimony of James Baker, who was the F.B.I.’s general counsel from 2014 to December 2017. If reports based on those leaks are to be believed, Mr. Baker testified that a former senior Justice Department attorney came to him weeks before the 2016 election with information regarding possible Russian efforts to collude with the Trump campaign.
In other words, a sworn officer of the court reported a possible crime in progress to another sworn officer of the court, knowing full well that to do so falsely is a crime. But Republicans assert that his information should be rejected merely because that former Justice Department official had gone to work for Democrats.

The words “FBI investigation” have struck terror in the heart of many a wrong-doer over the years.

Now, however, it could mean an investigation ofthe FBI.
Specifically, whether its interaction with the secret court that must approve surveillance operations constituted illegal acts.
The chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., is asking the head of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to determine whether the FBI engaged in misconduct, such as lying, to surveil members of President Trump’s 2016 campaign.
“As the Presiding Judge of the FISC … you are privy to information which could potentially verify or contradict our understanding of abuses of the FISA process,” he wrote to Judge Rosemay Collyer.
“Ultimately, to protect the integrity of the process, we believe such an investigation is necessary,” he said.
“We write to encourage you to investigate the possibility FISA has recently been weaponized for political means.”
The court issued warrants several times to spy on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page.

But the House Intelligence Committee found that the FBI and the Justice Department used the so-called “dossier” of unsubstantiated opposition research as primary evidence to obtain the warrant.
The dossier was created by an ex-British spy on the payroll of a company funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Meadows is on a congressional task force investigating the FBI review of “possible collusion” between the campaign and Russia.
No evidence of collusion has been found, and the only convictions that have come from Robert Mueller’s special counsel’s office have been on procedural counts.
Daily Caller News Foundation reported Republicans so far are focusing on the FBI’s requests for four FISA warrants against Page issued from October 2016 to June 2017.
To obtain the warrants, the FBI was required to provide probable cause that the target of the warrant was acting as an agent of a foreign power.
In his letter to Collyer, Meadows said the dossier contained “hearsay evidence” and other Republicans have noted that much of its contents were unverified at the time the FBI cited it in its FISA applications.
The dossier’s author, Christopher Steele, claimed Page met secretly with two sanctioned Russians in 2016 and was the Trump campaign’s “back channel to the Kremlin.”

No evidence has been made public that supports the accusations.
Meadows wrote: “Over the course of our congressional task force’s review into certain investigative and prosecutorial decisions made by the FBI and broader Department of Justice surrounding the 2016 elections, concerns have mounted related to the veracity of information presented before the FISC.”
Part of the problem is that the FBI concealed from the FISA court the fact that the dossier was paid for by the Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s campaign.
Meadows said the obvious concern is that the court “may not have lived up to the Constitution’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.”
WND reported in August that Bruce Ohr, a former top Justice Department official at the center of the anti-Trump dossier scandal, confirmed the FBI was aware when it submitted the dossier as evidence that Steele was biased against Trump and that Ohr’s wife worked for the company that produced it.
But that information was withheld from the FISA court.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions already confirmed earlier this year that the DOJ was looking into whether the FBI provided all relevant facts to the FISA court.
At the time, he said, “Let me tell you, every FISA warrant based on facts submitted to that court have to be accurate.”

Michael German is a fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program, which seeks to ensure that our government respects human rights and fundamental freedoms in conducting the fight against terrorism. His work focuses on law enforcement and intelligence oversight and reform. Prior to joining the Brennan Center, Mr. German served as the policy counsel for national security and privacy for the American Civil Liberties Union Washington Legislative Office.
A sixteen-year veteran of federal law enforcement, Mr. German served as a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he specialized in domestic terrorism and covert operations. As an undercover agent, German twice infiltrated extremist groups using constitutionally sound law enforcement techniques. These operations successfully prevented terrorist attacks by winning criminal convictions against terrorists. He also served as a counterterrorism instructor at the FBI National Academy. There, he taught courses on extremism in democratic societies and developed a graduate-level training program for state, local and international law enforcement officers.
Mr. German left the FBI in 2004 after reporting continuing deficiencies in FBI counterterrorism operations to Congress. He began lecturing on counterterrorism and intelligence matters and served as an adjunct professor for Law Enforcement and Terrorism at the National Defense University. He joined the ACLU Washington Legislative Office staff in 2006.  Mr. German is the author of scholarly articles including “Squaring the Error,” published by the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College and “Trying Enemy Combatants in Civilian Courts,” published in the George Washington Law Review. His first book, Thinking Like a Terrorist: Insights of a Former FBI Undercover Agent, was published in 2007. Mr. German currently serves on the Constitution Project’s Liberty and Security Committee and is a Senior Fellow with <a href=”http://GlobalSecurity.org” rel=”nofollow”>GlobalSecurity.org</a>. Mr. German graduated from the Northwestern University Law School, and graduated cum laude from Wake Forest University with a B.A. in Philosophy.

Four members of the California-based Rise Above Movement were arrested Tuesday for inciting violence in Charlottesville.

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Top story: Emails say woman was solicited to lie

Hello, it’s Warren Murray presenting the news to help you get woke.
The FBI has been asked to investigate whether a hoaxer offered women money to make false allegations of inappropriate behaviour against Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election.
An email sent to journalists was claimed to be from a woman who worked with Mueller at a law firm in the 1970s. She was offered $30,000 and other benefits to make false allegations. Mueller was in fact “always very polite to me, and was never inappropriate”, the email said. It suggested the man behind the scheme was Jack Burkman – a rightwing talk radio host who has pushed discredited conspiracy theories and claimed to know of similar allegations about Mueller. Burkman raised money to help pay the legal fees of Rick Gates – Donald Trump’s former deputy campaign chairman, who has pleaded guilty as a result of Mueller’s investigations. Trump and some Republicans in Congress have sought to undermine Mueller’s investigation.
Meanwhile protests have greeted the president’s visit to Pittsburgh in the wake of the synagogue shootings. Over loudspeakers, organisers accused Trump of emboldening “a growing white nationalist movement” with hateful speech towards minorities including Jews, African Americans, LGBTQ people and immigrants.

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Asia Bibi case – Pakistan’s supreme court has struck down the death sentence for blasphemy handed down to Christian woman Asia Bibi. Judges have been praised for braving threats of violence from Islamist groups over the case. The Christian farm labourer, a 47-year-old mother of three, was sentenced to hang for blasphemy in 2010. She had angered fellow Muslim farm workers by taking a sip of water from a cup she had fetched for them on a hot day.
When they demanded she convert to Islam, she refused, prompting a mob to later allege that she had insulted the prophet Mohammed. Paramilitary security forces have deployed across the capital in the past 24 hours, protecting the Judges Enclave and the diplomatic zone. About 300 police have been stationed to guard the supreme court.

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Midweek catch-up – A satisfying hodgepodge of choicest trimmings from the kitchen cutting board of news …
> On the budget, the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, says Labour won’t oppose the higher earner tax cuts. An expert on NHS finances says the boost to its frontline services is “robbing Peter to pay Paul” because £1bn will be taken from other areas.
> Violent storms have continued to batter Italy, killing at least 11 people and flooding Venice including St Mark’s Square and Basilica. France, meanwhile, has been hit by heavy snow that has caused chaos on the roads and power cuts.
> After buying House of Fraser, Sports Direct has scooped Evans Cycles out of administration as well. There are fears for more than 440 jobs at the bicycle chain with half its 62 stores facing potential closure.
> Police investigating the disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh in 1986 are excavating and dismantling a garage at a home once owned by the prime suspect’s mother. Estate agent Lamplugh vanished after going to meet a client known only as Mr Kipper.
> Want to avoid Great British Bake-Off spoilers? Try setting your web browser to reject all cookies. (This does not constitute actual technical advice.) Anyway, somebody ended up winning and here’s who. And here cooling on the windowsill is Lucy Mangan’s review of the finale.

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Twist in Ramadan rape case – The Oxford academic Tariq Ramadan, who is in French custody accused of rape, has admitted to having sexual relations with the two women involved – reversing his previous outright denials that such encounters took place. Text messages from one of the complainants’ phones have been retrieved and published. Ramadan’s lawyer insists the messages show the woman was consenting, and says the other woman also sent Ramadan texts of an explicit sexual nature that indicated her consent. Both women have told police they were forced into violent sex. A third woman, in Switzerland, has accused Ramadan of raping her in a Geneva hotel and a formal investigation has been opened. Ramadan’s French defence said there had been no complaints against him in the UK where he is on a mutually agreed leave of absence from Oxford University.

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Tick-a-box Brexit – Ministers might use a Commons trick to get their preferred version of Brexit through, campaigners for a second referendum fear. Instead of being able to put amendments, MPs could instead be offered a vote on “stand-alone consecutive motions” – the equivalent of multiple choice. The Labour MP Chris Leslie said ministers might use “a smorgasbord of resolutions” to “conveniently ignore the resolutions they don’t like”. The global rating agency Standard & Poor’s is warning that a no-deal Brexit will mean rising unemployment, falling household incomes and an eventual recession for Britain. Brexit is biting into the high-end London property market, with half the apartments inside the converted brutalist Centre Point tower unsold. The developer is shelving them because of too many “detached from reality” lowball offers.

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Kanye’s eyes opened – Kanye West has announced his retirement from politics to spend more time on “being creative”. The rapper says he got burned when his name was misused to promote the “Blexit” movement, which is telling black people not to vote for the Democrats. “My eyes are now wide open,” said West, “and now realize I’ve been used to spread messages I don’t believe in.” During his bizarre visit to the White House recently, West commented: “You know, people expect that if you’re black you have to be Democrat. I’ve had conversations that basically said that welfare is the reason why a lot of black people end up being Democrat.” West has faced criticism for endorsing Donald Trump, whom critics say has emboldened the white nationalist movement.

Lunchtime read: Fox News’ voice of reason

As a young reporter Shepard “Shep” Smith was covering the OJ Simpson trial in Los Angeles. Amid all the drama and hype, he reported frankly from the scene that “there really wasn’t much going on in the trial that day, and so I just gave some background news and told the producers I didn’t need much time”. Roger Ailes, who was setting up Fox News, thought it was brilliant and immediately recruited him.
Telling it like it is has always been part of Smith’s repertoire. And despite working for what he has called “the craziest conservative network on Earth” – Donald Trump’s favourite channel, no less – Smith has become a standard-bearer for skewering the conspiracies of the Trump era. This week, a clip of him debunking the Honduran migrant “human caravan” went viral. “Tomorrow is one week before the midterm election, which is what all of this is about,” he orated, from his weekly afternoon show, Shepard Smith Reporting. “There is no invasion. No one is coming to get you. There’s nothing at all to worry about … We’re America. We can handle it.” Loyal hyper-partisan fans of Fox News hate him, but this year Shep signed up until at least 2021: “I wonder, if I stopped delivering the facts, what would go in its place.”

Sport

Eddie Jones has omitted Mike Brown, Ben Morgan and Michael Rhodes from his England squad to face South Africa on Saturday, with Courtney Lawes also ruled out through injury. The Tottenham manager, Mauricio Pochettino, is finding his one-shot managerial career tied inexorably to a construction project hatched and launched more than 10 years ago while he was studying for his coaching badges, writes Barney Ronay.
Geraint Thomas has told Donald McRae in a wide-ranging interview that in an ideal world his Sky teammate Chris Froome would ride for him, but the Tour de France winner knows “that’s not possible”. Simone Biles is now an 11-time world champion after overcoming a kidney stone to lead the USA women to team gold at the World Gymnastics Championships in Doha. And Al-Jazeera’s second cricket expose prompted a slanging match with authorities, though the question should be not whether spot-fixing exists but who is doing it and how often, writes Andy Bull.

Business

The strains of a trade war with the US are starting to show on the Chinese economy as manufacturing activity slumped to a two-year low and the yuan slid again against the greenback. One analyst said the data masked a worse situation on the ground in China as the authorities tried to avoid a “financial blow-up”. The news did not impact stock markets in Asia where traders expect more stimulus. The FTSE100 is set to rise 0.5% this morning but there has been more pain for the pound which is buying $1.27 and €1.124.

The papers

The Guardian leads with S&P’s warning of a no-deal Brexit recession, and also covers Trump threatening to end migrant babies’ right to citizenship. “Must do better” is teachers’ verdict on the budget according to the Mirror, which says they are angry the chancellor has fobbed them off with cash for “little extras” but failed to deliver solid long-term funding. “Fears over Brexit lead to rush for Irish passports” says the Times (didn’t we all do that story ages ago?).
“War veteran goes on hunger strike”, says the Express, which explains it’s about a lack of mental health care for returned Falklands soldiers. The Telegraph says there has been a “Cover-up after UCL stem cell deaths” with scientists failing to disclose the fate of two patients who died in trials. The Mail has “9/11 terrorist back on the streets … and treated like a hero”: Mounir el-Motassadeq, who was tried and jailed in Germany for helping the New York attackers, has returned to his home country of Morocco after being released early. The Financial Times reports “Brussels tells traders it will not slam the door on City clearing” which comes as a relief no doubt.

Sign up

The Guardian morning briefing is delivered to thousands of inboxes bright and early every weekday. If you are not already receiving it by email, make sure to subscribe.
For more news: www.theguardian.com

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CNN Steve Bannon interviewed by Mueller’s team for at least the third time CNN The source said Bannon has never appeared before the Mueller grand jury. The Washington Post first reported that Bannon had been interviewed Friday by the spe…
» FBI News Review: mueller – Google News: Steve Bannon interviewed by Mueller’s team for at least the third time – CNN
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CNN Steve Bannon interviewed by Mueller’s team for at least the third time CNN The source said Bannon has never appeared before the Mueller grand jury. The Washington Post first reported that Bannon had been interviewed Friday by t…
» mueller – Google News: Attempt to Accuse Mueller of Sexual Assaults Relies on Well-Known Conspiracy Theorists – Fortune
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Fortune Attempt to Accuse Mueller of Sexual Assaults Relies on Well-Known Conspiracy Theorists Fortune An attempt to discredit in advance reporting about a sexual assault accusation against special counsel Robert Mueller appears to rely …
» fbi and trump – Google News: Plot to Smear Mueller Unravels as FBI Is Asked to Investigate – New York Times
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New York Times Plot to Smear Mueller Unravels as FBI Is Asked to Investigate New York Times The plot appeared to be the latest, and one of the more bizarre, in a string of attempts by supporters of President Trump to discredit Mr. Muelle…
» mueller – Google News: Plot to Smear Mueller Unravels as FBI Is Asked to Investigate – New York Times
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New York Times Plot to Smear Mueller Unravels as FBI Is Asked to Investigate New York Times WASHINGTON — The office of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has asked the F.B.I. to investigate what appears to be an effort to smear …
» fbi – Google News: Plot to Smear Mueller Unravels as FBI Is Asked to Investigate – New York Times
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Boing Boing (blog) Plot to Smear Mueller Unravels as FBI Is Asked to Investigate New York Times WASHINGTON — The office of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has asked the F.B.I. to investigate what appears to be an effort to sm…
» FBI News Review: mueller – Google News: Plot to Smear Mueller Unravels as FBI Is Asked to Investigate – New York Times
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New York Times Plot to Smear Mueller Unravels as FBI Is Asked to Investigate New York Times WASHINGTON — The office of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has asked the F.B.I. to investigate what appears to be an effort to smear …
» FBI News Review: fbi – Google News: Plot to Smear Mueller Unravels as FBI Is Asked to Investigate – New York Times
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Boing Boing (blog) Plot to Smear Mueller Unravels as FBI Is Asked to Investigate New York Times WASHINGTON — The office of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has asked the F.B.I. to investigate what appears to be an effort to sm…
» Federal Bureau of Investigation: Plot to Smear Mueller Unravels as F.B.I. Is Asked to Investigate
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In an email sent to journalists, a woman claimed she was promised money to fabricate sexual misconduct claims against Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel. Federal Bureau of Investigation
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Minnesota Public Radio News Pittsburgh shooting and other cases point to rise in domestic extremism Minnesota Public Radio News Testifying to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security on Oct. 10, FBI director Christopher Wray said the bu…
» mueller – Google News: The incredibly shoddy plot to smear Robert Mueller, explained – Vox
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Vox The incredibly shoddy plot to smear Robert Mueller , explained Vox An apparent attempt to drum up phony sexual misconduct allegations against special counsel Robert Mueller collapsed spectacularly Tuesday, and may have landed some co…
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The Hill Trump plans executive order to end birthright citizenship The Hill chairman of the House Judiciary Committee , praised Trump for “talking about this important issue.” “We will review it when it is released,” Goodlatte said in an…
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WASHINGTON — The office of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has asked the F.B.I. to investigate what appears to be an effort to smear him, … Alerta de Google: fbi
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Albuquerque Journal FBI : Man robs bank in NE Albuquerque Albuquerque Journal FBI spokesman Frank Fisher said the suspect robbed the Washington Federal Bank, at 3000 Eubank NE, around 1:30 p.m.. Fisher did not give any other details of t…

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s office has asked the FBI to investigate allegations that shameless Republican self-promoter and conspiracy theorist Jack Burkman offered an unnamed woman tens of thousands of dollars to falsely accuse Mueller of sexual misconduct. That much is true. The Atlantic reported it, and Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller’s office, confirmed in a statement, “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.”
But the story gets much more convoluted from there. There is no evidence that the unnamed woman accusing Burkman of soliciting false accusations actually exists. There’s also reason to believe that the email “she” sent to multiple reporters about the alleged payoff scheme may have been designed to trick the media into reporting a made-up allegation against Burkman.
When Mother Jones asked Burkman about the anonymous woman, he said, “That’s a person who doesn’t exist.” He added, “I know nothing of the email. I didn’t send it. I didn’t authorize anybody to send it.” The unnamed woman in the Atlantic article sent her accusations to reporters including freelancers Scott Stedman and Yashar Ali and Hill Reporter‘s Ed and Brian Krassenstein, brothers who have gained large Twitter followings by attacking President Donald Trump. They all could find no evidence that Parsons is a real person.
Burkman is best known for his role in promoting conspiracy theories as part of his supposed effort to solve the murder of Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee staffer who was killed in 2016 in what police identified as a mugging gone awry. Burkman has long gone to great lengths to get media attention—including calling for the NFL to ban gay players despite the fact that his brother is gay. Earlier this year, Kevin Doherty, one of Burkman’s former Rich co-investigators, tricked Burkman into thinking he was an FBI official with dirt on then-deputy director Andrew McCabe. When Burkman followed his informant’s instructions and went to a parking garage to pick up supposedly incriminating documents, Doherty allegedly shot Burkman and ran over Burkman and his dachshund, Jack Jr.
As Mother Jones reported last year, Burkman’s claim that he is a top DC lobbyist is particularly misleading:

Burkman’s lobbying record includes its own theatrics. When the Hill reported that his firm signed up 70 clients, Burkman admitted that his desire to be “squeaky clean” may have led him to register more clients than he needed to. Two clients I spoke with said they paid Burkman less than the amount he reported to the government, and a similar discrepancy involving a third client appears in a court document. (Burkman says he doesn’t personally prepare the reports but tells everyone he works with to be “100 percent accurate.”)
Few of his clients have worked with a Washington lobbyist before. Desert Lakes University, which like many of Burkman’s clients lacks a working phone number, boasts on its Facebook page that it provides “education for individuals to prepare them for the future without charging the for tuition [sic].” Desert Lakes’ website went offline several years ago. Burkman calls the school a startup. Another client, the Black Moon Corporation, hopes to build a repository of genetic material akin to the library of Alexandria inside a crater on the moon.

It is unclear what Burkman is up to with his latest stunt. Burkman says that a woman—a real woman—will accuse Mueller of sexual assault at a press conference Burkman is hosting on Thursday at a hotel outside Washington. Earlier this year, he told reporters that someone would come forward in person, at the same hotel, with evidence that the government had killed Rich. Instead, a man with an incoherent story made the accusation on speakerphone. There’s no reason to think Thursday’s press conference will turn out any better.
In his statement, Carr, the special counsel spokesman, referred Mother Jones to the Hill Reporter story, which he called “a good representation of the background to the allegations.” That story lays out a case for why the Lorraine Parsons email appears to be a hoax.
After the Krassensteins received the Parsons email and called the number “she” provided, they soon received a text stating, “You’re in over your head…. Drop this.” A man who said he was calling from a company called Surefire Intelligence soon told Hill Reporter to stop contacting the woman as well.
Jennifer Taub, an associate professor at Vermont Law School, received a similar email from Surefire Intelligence, The Atlantic reported later on Tuesday. “It’s my understanding that you may have had some past encounters with Robert Mueller,” the email stated. “I would like to discuss those encounters with you.” The writer said he was investigating Mueller’s past and offered to pay Taub for “references.” But the sender did not appear to be offering to pay for false accusations, nor did he mention a Burkman connection. Burkman denies offering anyone money to falsely attack Mueller.
Burkman told Hill Reporter that Jacob Wohl, a 20-year-old Trump supporter with a large Twitter following, runs Surefire Intelligence, adding that the company does a “lot of good research.” Wohl denied knowing anything about Surefire. The Krassensteins later found internet source code that clearly connected Wohl to the company.
Surefire Intelligence appeared to ask Burkman earlier this month for $4,000 for “Operation Hellfire,” according to an invoice Burkman sent to Hill Reporter. Burkman declined to comment on his relationship with Wohl when we spoke. He would only say that any invoice he did send was for “investigative” services.
Burkman said he didn’t know whether the Parsons email was a hoax, but he seemed to relish the idea that it might cause journalists to fall for a trap. In that case, he said, “the only thing that would highlight were the pathetically low journalistic standards. That’s almost like—if that’s true—what Project Veritas does. You’re letting them walk into it.” He later said that anything that highlighted “the extremely low standards of the establishment media is something I would love to do.”
Regardless of the story behind the email, Burkman has achieved his longtime goal of getting more attention. He told me he had just gotten off the phone with The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, who tweetedthat everything about the Parsons story “seems fishier than a tuna sandwich” and that the whole episode is “just a stupid hoax.” (Mother Jones has not confirmed that Mayer spoke to Burkman.)
Burkman seemed happy to be in the spotlight. “Well, hey,” he said. “We’ll take it. Maybe it will get me more followers.”

On October 30th, the far-right site Gateway Pundit published documents alleging that Robert Mueller, who is heading up the investigation into foreign interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, sexually assaulted a woman in 2010. The firm that produced this “investigation” was quickly revealed to be SureFire Intelligence, which has a tiny digital footprint prior to the Mueller allegations.
Jacob Wohl, a 20-year-old conservative activist who is most well known for his reports from “hipster coffee shops in downtown LA” about how Trump is secretly popular among young liberals, tweeted about the allegations against Mueller a day before they surfaced on Gateway Pundit, which he also writes for.

DNS Ties

The “intelligence firm” that prepared the allegation, SureFire Intelligence, was linked to Wohl due to DNS registration records saved on CuteStat.com. These records show that someone using the email <a href=”mailto:jacob.wohl@nexmanagement.com”>jacob.wohl@nexmanagement.com</a> was involved with the domain registration for <a href=”http://surefireintelligence.com”>surefireintelligence.com</a>.
Jacob Wohl previously worked at Nex Management, as is clear from their account tweeting a photograph of him with Trump, naming him as “CEO”.

A SureFire Miss

The “intelligence” firm itself seems legitimate at first glance, with over a dozen employees working there according to LinkedIn, a somewhat professional-looking website at surefireintelligence.com, a Twitter page, and a few posts on Medium [note: deleted, archived here] referencing it. However, under any actual scrutiny, all of these facades fall apart.
When searching for the various employees who list their employment as SureFire Intelligence, nearly all of them use stolen profile photographs. In particular, many of these photographs use the sepia-toned filter that was likely used to disrupt reverse image search algorithms.
Their “Tel Aviv Station Chief” uses a photograph of Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli.
One of their “Investigators” from Boston uses a stock photograph with extra filters added on.
An LA-based “Private Investigator” at SureFire Intelligence bears a strong resemblance to Nick Hopper, a British model and photographer.
A woman who describes herself as the “Head of Government Relations” at SureFire Intelligence either does not exist, or is actually a stock photo model.
The “Deputy Director of Operations” at SureFire is also fake, unless he moonlights as a minister from Michigan.
Other “employees” at SureFire Intelligence also stole their profile pictures from others, but perhaps the most brazen is their Zurich-based “Financial Investigator” — Christoph Waltz.
Few, if any, of these profile photographs produced results when running a reverse Google Image search. However, Jacob Wohl, or whoever else created these LinkedIn profiles, was probably not aware that when they were plugged into Yandex Image Search — which is far more powerful with facial recognition — all of the LinkedIn photographs will bring back surefire results.
Update: The Medium user “Evan Goldman”, who claimed to be an Israeli analyst specializing in writing on private intelligence, used a profile picture stolen from a model named Oran Katan, as discovered by Byron Kittle. “Goldman” wrote a glowing profile on SureFire Intelligence, claiming to visit their headquarters and speaking with their analysts. He deleted his Medium profile today, but his Twitter is still active [archive] as of this update.