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A “researcher” associated with a GOP activist known for peddling right-wing conspiracies sent an email to Vermont Law Professor Jennifer Taub last week, asking her if she would talk with him on the phone about “past encounters” with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Simon Frick of Surefire Intelligence wrote to Taub on Oct. 22 that his organization is “conducting an examination of Robert Mueller’s past.

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“Tell me a decent method to contact you by telephone (or Signal, which would be ideal) and a beginning rate to talk with you about all encounters you’ve had with Special Counsel Mueller,” Frick continued.

Taub, a legal scholar at the South Royalton law school, has never met Mueller. “The only time I’ve seen him is on TV,” she said in an interview with VTDigger.

Taub said the email struck her as weird and suspicious, and she immediately forwarded it to the special counsel’s office. She heard nothing from the office and forgot about the incident until she read a story in the Atlantic published Tuesday afternoon about another woman who had been contacted by Surefire Intelligence. Taub reached out to the author, Natalie Bertrand, to share the email she received.

The Atlantic’s report, which featured another email exchange between Lorraine Parsons and Surefire Intelligence, had an immediate impact. The special counsel’s office issued a press statement announcing that the office has asked the FBI to investigate an apparent campaign to smear Mueller — in the middle of the counsel’s probe into whether members of President Donald Trump’s immediate circle conspired with Russians to influence the 2016 election.

Peter Carr, the spokesman for special counsel’s office, wrote: “When we learned last week of allegations that women were offered money to make false claims about the special counsel, we immediately referred the matter to the F.B.I. for investigation.”

The Atlantic says Parsons alleges that Surefire Intelligence had contacted her, offering to give her $20,000 “to make accusations of sexual misconduct and workplace harassment against Robert Mueller.” Parsons said she had worked for Mueller as a paralegal at a Massachusetts law firm in 1974. He was always “polite and never inappropriate,” Parsons told the Atlantic by email.

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Parsons’ identity, however, has not been corroborated, according to the New York Times. Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro had no record of her working there.

After Taub came forward yesterday afternoon, Bertrand updated the story with information about how she had been contacted by Surefire Intelligence, a company run by Jack Burkman a GOP activist who the New York Times has said “is known for peddling right-wing conspiracy theories.” Burkman is holding a press conference tomorrow at a Holiday Inn Rosslyn in Alexandria, Virginia.

Taub had a funny feeling about the email from Frick on Oct. 22, and took screenshots of it, and sent it to two friends – Jed Shugerman, a professor at Fordham University, and Mimi Rocah, a professor at PACE University, both of whom comment on legal affairs for MSNBC.

And then she forgot about it, thinking it was just another crank email from a stranger after the publication of her commentary on CNN about the hearings on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

She was busy teaching classes Tuesday when she got a text from Shugerman about The Atlantic story and realized she had her own communication from Surefire Intelligence. Shugerman put her in touch with Bertrand.

Taub said because she’s a real person and “this is an email I got,” that gave “credibility to scam.”

But she remains perplexed why Surefire reached to her.

“I can’t figure out why they would have contacted me,” Taub said. She speculates that they were casting a wide net, and perhaps the CNN commentary on Kavanaugh drew their attention.

“Maybe they saw that and thought this is someone who’s written about sex assault,” Taub said. “It’s baffling.”

It’s particularly perplexing given Taub’s political persuasion.

“I organized a nationwide march to get Trump to release tax returns,” Taub said. “Do they not Google?

“I suppose if I step back it doesn’t look like this goes very high up and it was no one involved with Trump,” Taub said. “If they asked for my advice, I would have said you got the wrong person.”

No one from the FBI or the special counsel has contacted Taub.

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