Fresh from his expedition to the savage wilderness of Minneapolis, rested from the harrowing experience of faking death threats from gay Hispanic diversity coordinators, Jacob Wohl launched himself fearlessly into his new mission, to defeat the candidacy of Democratic hopeful Pete Buttigieg by hook or crook.
Far-right activists Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman helped coordinate a fake campaign against Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg through a Medium post on Monday that accused the mayor of sexual assault.
The two men used fake social media accounts for a 19-year-old Ferris State University student named Hunter Kelly on Monday without his knowledge or consent to publish a vague post accusing the presidential hopeful of assault this past February.
It’s too bad that Don Knotts died, because he’d be the natural choice to play Wohl as a bumbling villain in the Disneyfied live-action movie of this caper. Their patsy, Kelly Hunter, has since released a statement disavowing the whole mess.
I WAS NOT SEXUALLY ASSAULTED
It’s important for everyone to know that I was not sexually assaulted and would never falsely accuse anyone.
To keep it brief for now- I was approached by a political figure to come to DC to discuss political situations from the standpoint of a gay Republican. When I arrived they discussed Peter Buttigieg and started talking about how they would be working a campaign against him.
I went to bed and woke up to a fake Twitter @RealHunterKelly and an article that I in no way endorsed or wrote.
I have since left and am working on a formal statement to give to everyone including the Buttigieg family.
Thank you for standing behind me and knowing that I would never accept or allow any of this.
You can’t be too bright to be a gay Republican, but even worse is to be the kind of liar who manufactures transparently phony hit pieces like Wohl and Burkman.
Burkman would be played by Tim Conway.
Sexual assault is a serious crime these days.
When does making false accusations stop being evil and start being both evil and against the law here?
These guys have stretched the term “Far-right activists” past the breaking point.
They are just amoral serial liars.
Much like their hero, the current president of the USA, Trump.
Why would they pick a real person, someone capable of responding, rather than making up a fake person?
(also, the name is Hunter Kelly not Kelly Hunter.)
just because they are incompetent, doesn’t mean they aren’t destructive.
this is actually a crime. punishable in both federal and civil court.
if people like these are not taken to task for the bullshit they pull, it will just get worse.
raven @1:
I dare you to name a “Far-right Activist” who is not an amoral serial liar. I double dare you.
I don’t know – casting Knotts and Conway in their roles would make them something they’re absolutely not in real life: likable.
Regardless of whether anyone falls for this kind of fraud the attempt accomplishes its goal. Primary goal, and most unlikely to succeed, is to smear the target. Secondary goal is to further disseminate the fictional narrative that society is rife with politically/revenge motivated false rape claims. That goal is much more reachable and more broadly destructive, and Wohl is more than willing to perpetuate it in order to spread seeds of doubt as to veracity of other, legit accusations, even if doing so personally gains him negative attention.
The thing I find most disturbing about this is that at one time, being caught in a lie, especially one this brazen, would have ended someone’s career no matter which side of the political spectrum it was. We had the common standard across the political spectrum that truth mattered, even if people didn’t always agree on what the truth was.
Not only is this not going to end Wohl’s career; his followers won’t even care that he was caught in a lie. At this point, everything is tribal and winning is the only thing that matters. We’ve reached the point of “OK, so I told a lie, who cares?” And that does not bode well for the future.
@6 Onamission5: I’m certain that’s part of it, but when the attempts are so transparent and so easily debunked, it sort of blasts a hole in the “false accusations are rampant and ruin countless lives” narrative. None of their last three targets had any difficulty proving their innocence, nor have suffered any damage beyond the strain from rolling their eyes.
Unfortunately even blatant, ridiculous falsehoods add to the narrative for people willing to close ranks when it’s one of their own who’s behaved poorly. Oh sure, these were easily disproven, but what about all the false and/or overhyped accusations made by smarter, better connected people?
Or so went the arguments on places like Kos the last time Wohl started in, regarding the apparently legit accusations towards Franken, Ellison, so forth. People who want to believe that false accusations towards men are rampant and anyone on their team who’s accused is suffering under persecution need only the flimsiest of excuses to do so. Wohl provides.
@8 ridana: These attempts are so transparent and so easily debunked by people like you, but you’re not the target audience for them.
I just found out in reading about their latest libel that Wohl and Burkman were the source of the conspiracy theory about Rep. Omar marrying her brother to get him into the US.
People like my brother-in-law are the target for their schemes. The family got together for Easter and he confidently told me that Rep. Omar married her Brother to get HERSELF into the US. Not only was this immediately debunked, he didn’t even get the conspiracy theory right but he was completely confident in his belief this really happened.
When I told him she didn’t marry her brother, his response was “oh yea, well show me the wedding license”… for a wedding to her brother that never happened.. I was supposed to prove it to him by showing him a license, that doesn’t exist.
This is the level of the Stupid we’re dealing with.
Debunking these things is meaningless because there’s these are tactical lies that are indiscriminately dropped in a carpet bombing.
Like real bombs, you can’t erase the damage they caused after they’re delivered.
The only way to stop the damage is to take out the bombers before their next run. These two need to be prosecuted, hopefully criminally but at least civilly. Now, I expect they could easily find a right-wing sugar daddy to cover civil fines, but they’d gain a lot less traction from the start if they shackled with the weight of guilty verdicts when they tried to take off for another bombing run.
Last I heard, there were open investigations about their false police report in MN and the FBI was investigating their attempt to recruit a false witness against Mueller. Hopefully something will come from that.
I hope that individuals start going after them in Civil court too. IANAL, but I’d hope that the first death-threat that came in from a MAGA-head after one of their slander/libel schemes would be enough to prove damages in court, even if only emotional damages.
raven @1
In this instance, Wohl can’t pretend that there was no intent to lie since he was impersonating an actual person, so libel and slander could be on the table if Buttigieg chooses to press charges.
This kind of implicit bothsiderism is both stupid and contemptible.
Don Knotts and Tim Conway? Are Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern unavailable?
The Wonkette story on this is amazingly wonderful.
I fully expect that Wohl will end up in prison several times before he’s 30.
Unfortunately Wohl will probably end up in jail for something stupid, like getting caught with a joint during a traffic stop.
KG, I’ve now re-read what I wrote three times to try to figure out how you concluded that I was saying both sides. Sorry, I just don’t see it, so perhaps you can point out exactly what I said that’s pointing the finger at both sides.
Thirdmill, I agree its a long bow to claim your comment is bothsidism.
If you take the last paragraph out of the context of talking about the alt right then you could infer a universal subject. But the context of the preceding text follows into the last paragraph just fine.
DanDare, thank you.
I think that while there are individual instances of people on the left behaving badly, the systemic problem of outright lies, distortions, conspiracy theories and fabrications is overwhelmingly a problem on the right. If there is a left wing equivalent of birtherism, Fox News or claims that school shootings are government plots to take away people’s guns, I haven’t seen them. If there are left wingers who do the equivalent of pizzagate, I haven’t heard about them. If the left has its own version of Alex Jones, Jacob Wohl or Mike Cernovich, I’m not familiar with them. These liars, con men, and professional bullshit artists are almost without exception on one side. And my original point was that for the people on that side, everything is tribal, truth is irrelevant,and it’s all about winning.
ridana wrote:
Yes, Jacob Wohl is uniquely terrible at this, but he’s not the only one pulling this kind of crap. Remember James O’Keefe, the man who doctored some videos to get ACORN shut down? He’s not much more competent than Wohl, but by throwing as much shit out as possible, he continues to have some success even if most of his schemes fall flat on their face.
Continuing to not hold these people accountable for their misdeeds out of fear that they’ll claim political censorship is what enables them and encourages more to follow suit.
it is rather amazing and a little bizarre that this ass hole gets coverage for his so poorly designed and executed slanders and defamations
why do the established republican political leadership (such as it is) apparently fear to denounce and distance themselves with such immoral people?
uncle frogy
All things considered, it’s somewhat amazing that the Left hasn’t been pulling out all the stops more.
I mean, in the far-right imagination, the worst-case scenario is a world where guns are illegal, gay marriage is legal, and people get to choose their gender. That is their version of a dystopian hell-hole.
Whereas the left wing worst-case scenario is that our entire species goes extinct due to global warming. Oh, and for good measure we take along most of the mammals and fish with us.
Which side has a better case for “any means necessary”?