A man claiming to work for a private intelligence agency contacted a Vermont Law School professor last week and offered to pay her for dirt on Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
“It’s my understanding that you may have had some past encounters with Robert Mueller,” read the email Jennifer Taub received on October 22 from Simon Frick, a researcher from a group called Surefire Intelligence. “I would like to discuss those encounters with you.”
Frick asked Taub for her “beginning rate” to talk about any encounters with Mueller and offered to pay her “for any references that you may have.”
Frick, though, picked the wrong person to try to involve in such a scheme. Taub told Seven Days on Wednesday that she has never met or spoken to Mueller, who’s investigating President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. Moreover, she has been a public critic of many of the Trump administration’s policies. And the Harvard Law School graduate has extensive media contacts: She has been quoted in numerous national outlets and appeared on CNN as a legal expert.
Taub played a key role in unraveling the scheme this week, when she forwarded the email to Mueller’s office and then talked to the Atlantic about the bizarre events.
“It’s very sloppy,” said Taub, who lives in Northampton, Mass. “I just laugh. You probably shouldn’t pick me. One theory is they’re casting a very wide net, and they don’t even care if people know.”
The Atlantic reported Tuesday that Mueller’s office sent the FBI reports of an alleged scheme to pay women to fabricate sexual assault allegations against the special counsel.
Taub and at least one other woman who’d been contacted — and whose name has not been publicly revealed — instead came forward to the media or the authorities. The New York Times reported that Frick appears to be a false identity. (His LinkedIn profile photo is that of actor Christoph Waltz.) The Times also reported that Surefire Intelligence appears to be linked to Jacob Wohl, “a young conservative well known in certain political corners of Twitter who has contributed to The Gateway Pundit, a right-wing news site.”
Taub said she’s mystified as to why she was solicited. The law professor cofounded the Tax March, which drew more than 100,000 Americans to nationwide rallies on April 15, 2017, to call on Trump to release his tax returns, according to VLS. On Tuesday, she penned an op-ed for CNN decrying Trump’s plan to end birthright citizenship.
Shortly after receiving the email, Taub looked up the special counsel’s email address online and forwarded the message to Mueller’s office.
“I received this email and do not plan to respond,” she wrote. “However, I thought it might be worthwhile for the Special Prosecutor’s office to know that this person or entity is reaching out to people in a rather random fashion.”
Then she tried to go about her normal life. On Tuesday, as news of the scheme made national headlines, Taub was teaching her VLS students about witness tampering.
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There is no gutter too low for the pathetic GOP to dive into.
“Invasion caravans”, “Globalist Jews” running the world, impending Sharia law, Climate Change is a “Chinese hoax”, . . . there seems to be no end to the deranged paranoia and propaganda flowing from Right Wing media. Fox News, Brietbart, StormFront, Red State, and Drudge Report have given 35% of the country an electronic lobotomy. Josef Goebbels would be proud.
Hats off to Professor Taub for making this known.
As if Mueller needs any help looking bad.
Reaching out and offering to pay informants for dirt on public figures is perfectly legal. It may be distasteful to many but it IS legal. (Remember Hillary’s Bimbo Eruption tactics to destroy the women who accused her hubby of sex assaults?) Offering to pay potential informants to intentionally lie about public figures to defame and cause harm could be actionable in the civil arena but would be nearly impossible to charge as a crime. Just sayin’
There is no gutter too low for the pathetic GOP to dive into.
It never ceases to amaze me how it is immediately the GOP that is guilty. This is not limited to just the GOP. It is used by any political group to discredit the other, at times when it is not truthful as well.
If only politicians put the public first not their egos.
Just to point this out:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=19…
The North Dakota Democratic Party appears to be spreading lies as well. I am not commenting one side or the other, I am just pointing out that neither side has a ‘I am completely innocent unlike the other party’ lock on lies and trying to find dirt.
Maybe Im wrong, but I think that a political view should be helpful……and a politician that runs only on what bad things they can say about someone else is not. Being for change is not necessarily good if the change comes with no plan. Playing on primal fear and emotion should be left to horror movies, not the represention of a country that includes a vastly diversified group. Spreading lies and starting controversies…….thats no way to get things done, it is the ways of immature minds.
SEEMS LIKE MORE LIES FROM PROFESSOR TAUB. HOW DO WE KNOW THAT SHE DIDN’T HAVE SOMEONE EMAIL HER?
“SEEMS LIKE MORE LIES FROM PROFESSOR TAUB. HOW DO WE KNOW THAT SHE DIDN’T HAVE SOMEONE EMAIL HER?”
1. You say, “more” lies. What prior lies from Professor Taub are you referring to?
2. Is there no end to the krazy konspiracy theories that the Trumpians won’t adopt and spew? You’re seriously suggesting that Professor Taub intentionally had someone email her in a fake attempt to make it look like a pro-Trump person was seeking dirt from her on Mueller? Seriously? You’re suggesting that she did such a thing without thinking that she’d easily get found out in such a fake attempt?
3. “Surefire Intelligence” is a known pro-Trump entity, so your conspiracy theory that this was a fake attempt by Professor Taub doesn’t hold any water.
4. This story broke 18 days ago, and so far no one has come forward with any evidence that the email to Professor Taub was a fake set-up.
5. Using caps for your entire posting does not make your conspiracy theory more rational.