Former Gateway pundit writer allegedly involved in plot to frame Pete Buttigieg for sexual assault

Jacob Wohl, a former writer for the website Gateway Pundit, is accused of trying to fabricate sexual assault allegations against 2020 presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

What's the story?

According to the Daily Beast, Wohl was looking for someone willing to say that they had been sexually assaulted by Buttigieg. One of these people recorded his conversation and turned it over to the Daily Beast. In this conversation, Wohl tries to convince this anonymous person, who Daily Beast reporter Lachlan Markay described on Twitter as a "die-hard Trump supporter," to say that he had been drunk and Buttigieg had taken advantage of this and assaulted him. The source said that he refused Wohl's offer.

Another person, a college student from Michigan named Hunter Kelly, said that Wohl wrote a Medium post under Kelly's name accusing Buttigieg of sexual indiscretion. Kelly said that the entire incident was fabricated without his consent, and that he had never even been to Washington, D.C., where the assault was supposed to have taken place. There was also a fake Twitter and Gmail account in Kelly's name.

Kelly said that Wohl had tried to get him on board with this plan by claiming to that it was a "task force" sanctioned by the Trump administration. This appears to have been complete nonsense. Longtime Wohl collaborator and lobbyist Jack Burkman was also involved in this scam.

This Medium post has since been deleted. Kelly has since publicly denied ever being sexually assaulted.

Haven't we heard something like this before?

In October, Wohl was allegedly involved in a similar scheme, in which he and Burkman tried to fabricate sexual assault allegations against special counsel Robert Mueller. During that incident, Wohl reportedly created a fake investigative firm called Surefire intelligence. The phone number for this fictional firm went to Wohl's own mother's answering machine. The LinkedIn account for the company had been hastily populated with fake profiles featuring pictures of Wohl and other people who seemingly had their photos selected at random, all under fake names.

It was after this incident that Gateway Pundit chief Jim Hoft decided that not even his website could employ Wohl.

Wohl has also been permanently banned from Twitter, a platform he would often use to post dubious stories about Trump praise he claimed to have heard from liberals in a "hipster coffee shop."