ROSSLYN, VIRGINIA — The Holiday Inn Rosslyn isn’t exactly what you’d call a hangout for hot-shot finance bros and DC power brokers. It sits right next to a busy freeway and underneath the roar of planes landing at nearby Reagan National Airport. Rooms are advertised as starting at $68 per night.
This, however, is where Jacob Wohl — a twenty-year-old wannabe hedge fund manager and noted pro-Trump troll who is rapidly becoming a meme for plagiarizing his own tweets — chose to stage a press conference on Thursday afternoon. There, he outlined a series of farcical claims allegedly made against Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the Russia investigation.
Wohl has spent the last week in the limelight after he published an “EXCLUSIVE” piece at Trump fanfiction site Gateway Pundit, accusing Mueller of rape. Wohl’s story quickly fell apart, however, after it emerged that the woman in question didn’t exist, and that the intelligence firm which secured alleged documents supporting the claims consisted of Wohl, several fake LinkedIn profiles, and his mother’s phone number.
Undeterred, Jacob claimed that the earlier accuser was a false flag, and that the real accuser would join him at the press conference. On Thursday morning in front of a room full of reporters, Wohl recanted and said that the accuser was too terrified to appear.
Update: after Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman claimed over and over that their Mueller accuser would be there, they now say the woman won't be at the event because she's "fearful for her life." pic.twitter.com/Um6vlvzsFk
— Will Sommer (@willsommer) November 1, 2018
“Carolyn Cass has received a number of threats, she is frightened for her life and will not be with us today,” explained Jack Burkman, a right-wing lobbyist and noted conspiracy theorist who appeared beside Wohl at the press conference. “We will have a future [event] where she will be with us.”
The documented allegations, outlined in a paper labelled “Confidential Raw Intelligence Document,” printed the victim’s name as Carolyn Cass, but was signed Carolyne Cass. The accuser also claims the event occurred on or around August 2, 2010 in New York City, the same day that, as Tom McKay at Gizmodo noted, Robert Mueller was serving jury duty in Washington, DC. When asked to explain this alibi, Wohl suggested “sometimes people go to jury duty, but they’re also somewhere else.”
hey dumbass jim hoft and jacob wohl: Robert Mueller was SERVING JURY DUTY IN DC the EXACT DAY you claimed he raped a woman in NYC (August 2, 2010). that's some surefire intelligence for ya pic.twitter.com/h1P0y85cAP
— ʟᴠʟ 𝟺𝟻 sᴇᴀɴᴄᴇ ᴘᴏᴛᴜs (@thetomzone) October 30, 2018
The document alleges that Mueller met Cass at the hotel bar of the St. Regis Hotel in New York City. When I asked Wohl whether he has any other corroborating evidence of them meeting, Wohl offered that “a friend” of Ms. Cass’ saw her and Mueller from 20 feet away. He also explained that after eight years, it was “very tough to ascertain a lot of this physical evidence” like CCTV, receipts, or guest information.
Wohl then claimed that he was going to file a police report on the case and that it’d “probably be filed by the end of this week” before rapidly back-tracking and saying that the report would be filed at the end of next week.
Wohl also alleges that Cass only recognized Robert Mueller on September 15, 2018 after seeing a picture of him on the news. When I asked him how it was possible that a supposedly well-educated woman only recognized Mueller in September, despite the fact that he’s been leading the extremely well-publicized Special Counsel investigation since May 2017 Wohl claimed that “she doesn’t read the news” and that “a lot of people don’t read the news.”
From there, the event rapidly descended further into farce. When Wohl was asked what investigative experience he has — bearing in mind he’s all of 20 years old — he responded that he’s done “a handful of matters like this over the years” and that his mission was strictly non-partisan. “Jacob is one of the brightest and most capable and competent people I’ve met,” added Burkman, who reportedly failed to zip the fly of his pants before appearing on camera this morning. “I think Jacob is a child prodigy who has eclipsed Mozart.”
Wohl also claimed that he’d been put in touch with the accuser via ads on Craigslist and AngiesList, and that to compare the allegations to those leveled against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh by Christine Blasey Ford were “insulting to everyone’s intelligence.” He also added that a giant inflatable rat outside the Holiday Inn was proof that antifa was out trying to discredit him.
I’m waiting for Jacob Wohl’s press conference in Roslyn and the scene is set pic.twitter.com/X0uXWDXQiI
— Luke Barnes (@LukeBarnes_92) November 1, 2018
To his immense credit, Wohl was willing and able to continue his grift for a good hour in front of a room full of skeptical journalists, but the walls are rapidly closing in on him. Peter Carr, spokesman for the special counsel, says his office has referred the matter to the FBI for investigation — a fact not lost on the attendees, one of who asked Burkman and Wohl whether they’re ready for federal prison. The Gateway Pundit is also rapidly distancing itself from Wohl, with editor Jim Hoft saying that he is “NOT [sic] responsible for posting the original story reporting the accusations against Mueller.” After the press conference, it was reported that the Gateway Pundit had decided to suspend its relationship with Wohl.
But what the Wohl presser did reveal was two things. Firstly, that it is possible and in fact easy for any given nobody with just enough shamelessness to become a star of the MAGA-verse and occupy the attention of the mainstream media. Secondly, it’s another example of how Trump supporters seek to leverage the very real, very serious matters they falsely accuse liberals of inventing — fake news, sexual assault — in an attempt to use them against Democrats and the causes they support.
I attempted to catch up with Wohl in the aftermath of his press conference clanger to follow up on a few questions, and ask him precisely what hipster coffee shop he loves frequenting so much. Sadly, he managed to quickly scurry off into the beige bowels of the Holiday Inn.