Jack Burkman

Burkman was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1988, and in 1992 graduated with a MS from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and a JD from Georgetown University Law Center. Burkman lives in Arlington, Virginia, in a home that doubles as the headquarters of his and Wohl's organization, Project 1599. == Attempts to frame political figures ==

Robert Mueller On October 22, 2018, Vermont Law School professor Jennifer Taub received an email from Surefire Intelligence, a company created by Jacob Wohl, asking her to tell them about her "past encounters" with US Special Counsel Robert Mueller and offering her money to discuss Mueller by phone. Taub stated she had never met Mueller and referred the matter to Mueller's office, which then referred the matter to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). On October 30, NBC News and The Atlantic published articles detailing a scheme to falsely accuse Mueller of sexual misconduct in 1974. The articles reported that on October 17, 2018, several journalists received emails from a person claiming to be named "Lorraine Parsons" that asserted Burkman had hired a man with Wohl's Surefire Intelligence firm to offer her more than $20,000 to sign an affidavit falsely accusing Mueller of sexual misconduct and workplace harassment. Parsons told the reporters she had worked with Mueller at the law firm Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro in 1974, and that the man from Surefire had asked her to falsely accuse Mueller of engaging in misconduct during that time. Mueller worked at Pillsbury in 1974, but the firm told reporters they had no record of any Lorraine Parsons ever working there. Parsons declined reporters' requests to speak on the phone, and none of the reporters published the story until the scheme became evident. He told The Daily Beast they were going to "prove that [Mueller] is a drunk and a sexual abuser". The Gateway Pundit, which employed Wohl, published the "Lorraine Parsons" allegations that same day, including claims that there were "exclusive documents" about a "very credible witness" to support the accusations against Mueller. Each document had in its header the phrase "International Private Intelligence," the business slogan of Wohl's Surefire Intelligence firm. The article was removed later that day, with owner Jim Hoft stating that the matter and "serious allegations against Jacob Wohl" would be investigated. Also that day, Burkman tweeted and Wohl retweeted that Parsons did not exist, denying involvement in the matter, and calling it "a hoax designed to distract the nation from [Burkman's] press conference" to be held the next day. Burkman and Wohl convened a press conference outside Washington, D.C., on November 1, ostensibly to present a woman who they said signed the affidavit previously published by The Gateway Pundit, accusing Mueller of raping her in a New York hotel room in 2010on a date he was contemporaneously reported by The Washington Post to be serving jury duty in Washington. The men accused Mueller's office of "leaking" the eight-year-old Post story to discredit their allegations. The purported accuser, Carolyne Cass, did not appear at the press conference as they had initially stated she would, and the men asserted she had panicked in fear of her life and taken a flight to another location. Towards the end of the press conference, one reporter heckled, "Are you both prepared for federal prison?", to which Burkman replied "No we are not". The attempt to frame Mueller was included as a case study in After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News, a television documentary directed by Andrew Rossi that aired on HBO on March 19, 2020. In an interview for the documentary, Burkman said, "I would use Fake News as a weapon, because it's out there. The Germans used chemical weapons, the British used chemical weapons. What are you going to do? It doesn't mean you like chemical weapons, it means you do what you have to do... Yeah, there are terrible negative potential consequences, but so what? That's what I say. So what?" The student who was being impersonated on Medium and Twitter told The Daily Beast that Burkman and Wohl flew him to Washington, D.C., under the guise of speaking about politics from the perspective of a gay Republican, and that he was unaware they were trying to involve him in their scheme. He said that he had to pretend that he was taking a nap in order to escape Burkman's residence, and that they had created the Medium profile and a Twitter profile claiming to be him without his permission. However, Wohl denied involvement in creating the event page. Eventbrite later took down the event page citing their rules against "inauthentic content". At the May 8 press conference, Burkman and Wohl displayed footage of the student they had flown to Washington, D.C., drinking a coffee as proof that the student was not being coerced, with Wohl explaining that "Most forced coercion events… do not involve caramel frappuccino". During the press conference, the student released a statement describing Burkman and Wohl as "chronic liars" and stating that he would not be at the press conference as they had claimed. No protesters appeared at the fake protest of the press conference that Wohl himself had attempted to organize. Anthony Fauci In a late April 2020 press release, a woman claimed to have been sexually assaulted in 2014 by Dr. Anthony Fauci, a prominent member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Only The Daily Dot reported on the allegation, debunking it as a likely smear attempt. On May 2, 2020, the woman contacted Reason Magazine to confess that she and another woman had been paid by Burkman and Wohl to fabricate the allegations against Fauci. According to Reason, the woman contacted Burkman and Wohl and recorded their phone conversation. In that call, Wohl told her, "You did a good job, you got paid. What's the problem?" Burkman suggested that Fauci deserved the smear: "This guy shut the country down. He put 40 million people out of work. In a situation like that, you have to make up whatever you have to make up to stop that train and that's the way life works, OK? That's the way it goes... Mother Nature has to clean the barn every so often. How real is it? Who knows? So what if 1 percent of the population goes? So what if you lose 400,000 people? Two hundred thousand were elderly, the other 200,000 are the bottom of society. You got to clean out the barn. If it's real, it's a positive thing, for God's sake". Others On October 1, 2019, Burkman and Jacob Wohl held a press conference on the front steps of Burkman's home in which they claimed to know the identity of the whistleblower who revealed possible impropriety by then-President Trump involving Ukraine, though they said they could not release it. The press conference was sparsely attended and described by The Washington Post as another in a series of events in which Burkman and Wohl "routinely announce they have discovered smoking-gun revelations against Trump's rivals, then humiliate themselves when they fail to produce any evidence". On October 3, 2019, Burkman and Wohl announced a press conference in which they said a 24-year-old former United States Marine would claim he had an affair with Senator and 2020 presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren; the announcement was met with mockery and disbelief, and generally viewed as another of Burkman and Wohl's false allegations. On Friday, October 11, 2019, Burkman announced via Twitter that he and Wohl had scheduled a news conference for Monday, October 14. The press release stated that a purported illegal drug dealer would be presented, who would provide evidence that he sold illicit drugs to Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, and other unnamed members of Congress. At the press conference, which was postponed until October 21, Burkman and Wohl unexpectedly focused on claims that Senator Ted Cruz was cheating on his wife Heidi, only briefly mentioning their previous claims about Pelosi, and not producing any alleged drug dealer as they had announced they would. Burkman claimed in January 2020 to have incriminating photographs of Adam Schiff engaged in sexual activity, a statement that earned Burkman attention among adherents to the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory who already believed that Schiff had been engaged in nefarious activity at the Standard Hotel in Los Angeles. The Daily Beast wrote that Burkman unsuccessfully attempted to launder the photographs through several publications before releasing them himself. However, the three photographs eventually published by Burkman were blurry pornographic images "featuring a completely unrecognizable middle-age white man engaged in various gay sex acts". A reverse image search revealed the photographs were generic pornography found via internet search. This angered Burkman's newfound fanbase among QAnon conspiracy theorists, some of whom alleged that Burkman himself was a "deep state" actor working on Schiff's behalf to obfuscate the truth. == Other activities ==

In June 2016, Burkman held an event called Lobbyists for Trump and invited all major lobbyists of Washington, D.C., to help raise money for Donald Trump's presidential campaign. In July 2016, he helped fundraise for Free the Delegates, an anti-Trump effort to change the delegate rules for the 2016 Republican National Convention. In October 2019, Burkman and Wohl announced they would investigate any rumors about candidates in the 2020 presidential election as a part of an effort they called "Project 1599". Any candidates they fully vetted, they said, would receive the "Burkman-Wohl Seal of Approval". On March 19, 2020, Twitter permanently suspended Burkman's account after he tweeted unevidenced claims about impending nationwide food shortages due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A Twitter spokesperson said the account had been suspended for repeated infractions of Twitter rules, including making false statements about COVID-19. In September 2024, Politico reported that Burkman and Wohl had been running a firm called LobbyMatic, which promised to apply artificial intelligence to lobbying. According to the report, the duo hid their true identities, using false names and other fabricated personas to run the company. Wohl went by the pseudonym "Jay Klein" while Burkman was known as "Bill Sanders". In September 2024, Burkman claimed on Twitter that he had taken on the role of acting campaign manager for Mark Robinson's gubernatorial campaign. However, Robinson quickly denied this in his own tweet, stating that "Online rumors of new hires to our campaign are just that—rumors." During the second presidency of Donald Trump, via J.M. Burkman & Associates, Burkman and Wohl took on clients pursuing presidential pardons. Among their clients was Joseph Schwartz, a nursing home operator convicted of tax evasion in April 2025. Schwartz paid Burkman's firm $960,000, although a White House official said that no one at the White House had spoken with either Burkman or Wohl about Schwartz's case, and Schwartz terminated their services. Schwartz later secured a pardon after enlisting another lobbying firm. Burkman and Wohl also lobbied for a pardon on behalf of rapper Torrence Ivy Hatch Jr., who performs as Boosie Badazz, who pleaded guilty to firearms possession. , Hatch had not been granted a pardon. American Decency Burkman heads the organization American Decency, a conservative organization that claims to have 3.62 million members, though this claim is unverified. The organization drew media attention in 2014 when Burkman announced plans to protest the Dallas Cowboys' signing of Michael Sam, the first publicly gay player to be drafted in the NFL. Burkman called for legislation that would prohibit homosexuals from playing in the NFL, though this proposed legislation was never formally introduced in the House of Representatives and never received a vote. Seth Rich murder conspiracy theory Burkman started investigating the murder of Seth Rich in September 2016 after the Rich family accepted his pro bono public relations services. The Rich family and Burkman held a joint press conference about the murder in November 2016. In January 2017, Burkman launched an advertising campaign in Northwest D.C. searching for information regarding Rich's death. This included billboard advertisements and canvassing with flyers. In late February, Burkman started spreading conspiracy theories by telling media outlets that he had a lead that the Russian government was involved in Rich's death, and the Rich family distanced itself from Burkman. In March 2017, Burkman started "The Profiling Project", an independent investigative attempt to solve the murder of Seth Rich with help from forensics students at George Washington University. He hired Kevin Doherty, a former US Marine and special agent, to help with the project, although tensions developed when Burkman felt Doherty was speaking to reporters when he shouldn't have been and trying to take control of the project. In July 2017, Burkman fired Doherty and sent him a cease and desist letter. In March 2018, Doherty lured Burkman to a parking garage by claiming to have evidence of FBI misconduct. Roger Stone jury In late February 2020, Burkman and Wohl alleged that the jury that convicted Roger Stone, on seven felonies related to the Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation, was biased against him. In a press conference held on February 27, 2020, Burkman and Wohl distributed copies of confidential juror questionnaires, and they later published some of the questionnaires on Twitter. In September 2020, The Daily Beast reported that the FBI was investigating Burkman and Wohl for potentially attempting to influence the jurors or tamper with witnesses. The FBI is also investigating how the two obtained the questionnaires. Voter suppression robocall In August 2020, Burkman and Wohl made tens of thousands of robocalls The robocall campaign appeared to originate from Burkman's personal cell phone number, and the caller identified themself as part of Burkman and Wohl's organization, Project 1599. Several lawsuits against Burkman and Wohl have alleged that the robocalls were an attempt to suppress votes in the 2020 presidential election, and the Attorneys General of Michigan and New York have alleged that the two men intentionally targeted Black communities with the calls. On November 29, both Wohl and Burkman were each fined $2,500, sentenced to two years of probation, and ordered to perform 500 hours of community service registering voters in Washington, D.C. On June 6, 2023, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) imposed a $5,134,500fine against Burkman and Wohl for the robocalls. At the time it was proposed in August 2021, this was the largest fine ever sought by the commission under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Michigan On October 1, 2020, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed four felony charges each against Burkman and Wohl, including conspiring to intimidate voters in violation of election law. Nessel's investigation into the robocalls found that Burkman and Wohl had attempted to suppress people of color from voting in the 2020 presidential election via a robocall campaign that made 85,000 calls across the country, including 12,000 in Detroit. In a press release, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Attorney General Nessel condemned the robocall campaign as "racist" and as "an unconscionable, indefensible, blatant attempt to lie to citizens about their right to vote". Wohl told the Associated Press that same month that he and Burkman believed "leftist pranksters" had spoofed Burkman's phone number to make the phone calls, and Wohl threatened to sue Benson for defamation; Burkman and Wohl turned themselves in to Detroit police on October 8, 2020, and both pleaded not guilty at a later court appearance. On February 23, 2021, a Michigan circuit court judge denied Burkman and Wohl's motion to dismiss the charges. Burkman and Wohl appealed the decision to the Michigan Court of Appeals, which denied the appeal. After an appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court, the Supreme Court sent the case back to the Court of Appeals to determine whether the state law under which the two were charged violated the First Amendment. The Court of Appeals determined the case could proceed, and the Supreme Court declined to hear a subsequent appeal by Burkman and Wohl to dismiss the charges. On August 1, 2025, the Michigan Attorney General's Office announced that Burkman and Wohl both pleaded no contest to the charges. New York The National Coalition on Black Civic Participation filed a federal civil suit against Burkman and Wohl in New York on October 16, 2020, alleging that the two men violated the Voting Rights Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 by making the robocalls. On October 28, New York District Court Judge Victor Marrero ordered the men call back the targets of the robocall to tell them the information in their message was false and that the campaign was illegal. The judge also prohibited them from engaging in more robocalls or text message campaigns to attempt to disenfranchise voters. Burkman and Wohl tried multiple times to pause the civil suit while there were active criminal proceedings against them, but Judge Marrero denied the request on February 22, 2021. On May 19, 2021, the judge granted New York Attorney General Letitia James's motion to intervene in the lawsuit. On March 8, 2023, Judge Marrero found that Burkman and Wohl had violated several federal and state civil rights laws, including the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1957, and the Ku Klux Klan Act. In his opinion, he wrote that "the neighborhoods that Defendants targeted were not accidental or random," and that a reasonable jury would determine they had intended to "deny the right to vote specifically to Black voters." As a part of the litigation against Burkman and Wohl, in August 2022, the New York Attorney General announced a settlement with Message Communications, Inc., the robocall company that the pair had used, in which the company will pay $50,000 restitution. Ohio In October 2020, prosecutors in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, indicted Burkman and Wohl on eight counts of telecommunications fraud and seven counts of bribery. On October 24, 2022, Burkman and Wohl each pleaded guilty to one felony charge of telecommunications fraud. As a part of the plea deal, the 14 other counts of telecommunications fraud and bribery were dropped. On November 29, both Wohl and Burkman were each fined $2,500, sentenced to two years of probation, and ordered to perform 500 hours of community service registering voters in Washington, D.C. Staged FBI raid The Washington Post reported that agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had executed a raid on Burkman's home on the morning of September 14, 2020. Wohl claimed that the agents had taken "all of Jack's files, computers and phones" from the home, which is also the headquarters of Burkman and Wohl's organization, Project 1599. By the afternoon of the same day, The Washington Post had updated their story to reflect that the raid had been staged. The Daily Beast discovered that Burkman and Wohl had again recruited actors on Craigslist to stage the raid, under the guise of filming a television show. The Daily Beast also reported that the Twitter account which published the photos of the raid was likely operated by Wohl. ==See also==