Michigan officials are investigating a robocall of voter repression, presumably linked to blunders of conservative operations by Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman.
The robocall was aimed at scaring voters in Detroit from using ballot papers, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson tweeted on Thursday. Benson announced that her office and Attorney General Michigan, Dana Nessel, would investigate the origin of the call and “seek justice” against the people behind it.
The robocall has a woman who says she works for “Project 1599,” which she describes as “a civil rights organization founded by Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl.” While the call claims to come from Wohl and Burkman, Benson said in a statement that “the source of the call is still unknown.”
The voice on call then tells listeners that information on voting submissions will be used by police to track down refugees, by credit card companies to find debt collectors, and by the Centers for Disease Control to track people for mandatory faxes. ‘
“Do not be BS’ed to give your private information to the man,” the call continues. “Stay safe and watch out for email.”
The robocall also raged Wednesday in Pennsylvania, another battlefield state, according to tweets of people claiming to receive the call and a man from Pennsylvania who told The Daily Beast that he got one. The Pennsylvania Secretary of State’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
The Robocall “Project 1599” is the name of a nefarious political organization led by Wohl and Burkman, a play about the address of the North Virginia House that Burkman owns in Northern Virginia that hosts bizarre press conferences in Burkman’s driveway. But Wohl and Burkman deny any involvement in the robocalls.
Wohl said in an instant message from Instagram that he was “not aware” of any robocalls. Burkman was initially friendly in a phone call with a reporter for The Daily Beast, but hung up after being asked about the robocall. Burkman declined to answer further calls.
“We have no connection to such robo calls,” Burkman wrote later in an email, claiming the call came from “a liberal group that tried to humiliate us.”
The phone number for the robocall that was played in Pennsylvania is the same as a phone number in Northern Virginia that Burkman used publicly. But Burkman cited the use of his phone number in the call as proof that he and Wohl were not behind it.
“No one in their right mind would put their own cell on a robo call,” Burkman said in an email.
In a press release, Benson and Nessel called the robocall “racist” and urged Michiganders who had been called to contact their offices.
“This is a conscientious, indefensible, blatant attempt to lie to citizens about their right to vote,” Benson said in a statement. “The call praises voters’ fear and distrust of the criminal justice system – at a time of historic reckoning and confrontation with systemic racism and the resulting generational trauma – and turns it into a fabricated threat to discourage people from voting.”
Wohl and Burkman have been notorious for a series of ill-conceived schemes, including failed attempts to smother former special counsel Robert Mueller and former Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg with false accusations of sexual assault. Wohl currently stands for crimes in California over security sales.
While Burkman and Wohl claim they are not behind Michigan’s call, they have previously used robocalls. In 2019, Wohl The Daily Beast delivered the recording of an automatic call from Burkman that Wohl claimed would go out to thousands of people in Delaware and Pennsylvania. The call offered cash rewards for any evidence that Joe Biden had used racial slurs.
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