Jacob Wohl’s Press Conference Was the Laugh We Needed Today

Earlier this week, we talked about the weird, spiraling rabbit hole that was Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman’s attempts to spread what were very clearly fake accusations of sexual misconduct against special counsel Robert Mueller, who just happens to be investigating issues of foreign interference during the 2016 presidential election.

Despite naming their fake company “Surefire Intelligence,” the two fringe conservative figures’ ploy unraveled super quickly at the hands of basic journalism.

It was revealed Tuesday that Wohl started the company that allegedly paid a (probably made-up) woman to fabricate accusations against Mueller. His info was all over the source code for the site, which was created just a few weeks ago, and whose “staff” is just pictures of random celebrities and stock photo models.

Also, the company’s phone number redirected to his mother’s voicemail.

Multiple journalists reported being shopped the story and refusing it, including (!!!):

But despite being so publicly outed and owned, Wohl and Burkman insisted that they were being smeared by liberal operatives and they said their planned press conference, in which they would introduce the woman accusing Mueller of misconduct, would move forward as planned.

Indeed, the press conference did take place today, at a Holiday Inn outside of DC. And lucky for us, a number of journalists attended and live-tweeted the spectacle. It was, truly, the laugh we needed today.

To start, despite reportedly being open to the public (weird for a press conference), pictures indicate there were just a handful of attendees. That didn’t stop Wohl from insisting there was a huge protest. “Antifa” was there, meaning literally one guy with his inflatable Trump rat.

A bus also pulled up next to the hotel, so clearly it’s Soros at work.

The “press conference” started out with a major whimper as–shock of shocks!–their star witness didn’t show up.

They said it was because she feared for her life (and that she doesn’t exist), but they still felt comfortable in naming her, although they couldn’t agree on how that name was spelled.

Burkman’s defense was, I kid you not, “Even the Declaration of Independence had misspellings.” That wasn’t even his most self-aggrandized overstatement of the day, either.

That would be this:

Burkman says he’s a big fan of Wohl’s, even though the two won’t say how they even know each other, only calling their meeting “synergistic.”

The name spelling wasn’t the only basic fact the boys couldn’t keep straight.

Since they had no accuser present to make accusations, much of the “press conference” was then dedicated to defending themselves against the mockery they’d faced over the past two days.

Jacob Wohl was really mad that the internet was photoshopping him as a corn cob—a meme-ified symbol of refusing to acknowledge you’ve severely and humiliatingly lost an argument.

They also chastised the reporters present for their colleagues who called Wohl’s mother and young sisters looking for comment. It’s not clear if that was due to their phone number being listed as the official contact for “Surefire Intelligence” but that wouldn’t be surprising.

None of this is surprising, down to the no-show accuser, as Burkman has pulled this exact stunt before. Twice. These two men tried to convince the world they cared about women, but they actually thought statements like this would make them look credible:

Oh, also, this:

The whole conference can probably be summed up as:

And maybe also:

I wasn’t planning to give any more brainspace to these doofuses, but to be honest, I really needed this today.

This also helps:

When your weird attention-grabby right-wing anti-woman stunts are too embarrassing for even the Gateway Pundit to want to associate with you, you’re beyond redemption.

(image: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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