Jacob Wohl
Jacob Alexander Wohl is an American far-right conspiracy theorist, fraudster, and convicted felon. Wohl and lobbyist Jack Burkman have been responsible for multiple unsuccessful plots to frame public figures for fictitious sexual assaults. The pair were allegedly behind plots in October 2018 against US Special Counsel Robert Mueller, in April 2019 against 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, and in April 2020 against White House Coronavirus Task Force member Anthony Fauci.
Wohl has created and promulgated other false or unfounded claims and conspiracy theories, mainly against Democratic Party politicians such as Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, Ilhan Omar, and Elizabeth Warren. To aid his schemes, Wohl has created multiple fake private intelligence agencies, and has fabricated death threats and protests against himself. Formerly highly active on Twitter, and known for his online trolling on social media, Wohl has been banned from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for creating fake accounts in violation of site policies.
In August 2020, Wohl and Burkman made tens of thousands of robocalls to residents of battleground states, in a campaign that prosecutors alleged intentionally targeted non-white communities to spread disinformation in an attempt to suppress voting in the 2020 presidential election. As a result of the campaign, Wohl and Burkman each pleaded guilty to one felony charge of telecommunications fraud in Ohio, were found to have violated federal and state civil rights laws in a civil case in New York, and are facing criminal charges in Michigan. In June 2023, the Federal Communications Commission imposed a fine of more than $5million against both Wohl and Burkman over the robocall scheme.
Wohl founded several investment funds as a teenager. The National Futures Association banned Wohl for life in 2017, after investigating multiple investor complaints against him and concluding that Wohl was guilty of refusing to cooperate with the NFA as required, misrepresenting investments, and misleading investors. The same year, the Arizona Corporation Commission charged Wohl with 14 counts of securities fraud and ordered him to pay approximately $35,000 in restitution and penalties. In August 2019, Wohl was arrested on felony charges in California for illicit securities sales that took place in July and August 2016. He pleaded guilty to four felony counts, and in 2024 was sentenced to two years of probation.
Early life
Jacob Alexander Wohl was born on December 12, 1997. He was raised in Corona, California, where he attended Santiago High School. While in high school, he founded several investment funds, soliciting investments from classmates and teachers.Wohl's father, David Wohl, is a defense attorney and conservative commentator who has been a guest on Fox News programs and who has also promoted conspiracy theories.
Activities
Investment funds, sanctions, and legal action
Wohl founded investment funds Wohl Capital Investment Group, NeX Capital Management, and Montgomery Assets, Inc. as a teenager. Initially, he took investments from classmates and his high school teachers. Wohl appeared on Fox Business in 2015, when he was 17 years old, to discuss his hedge fund. He posted Craigslist ads for "Wohl Girls", models who were hired to help attract clients, and a number of risqué websites including "WohlGirls.com" were registered to his name. One model alleged that Wohl posted photographs of her online without her permission.In 2016, the National Futures Association investigated NeX Capital Management after receiving an investor complaint. The investor said that Wohl had told him his $75,000 investment had grown, but had paid the investor only $44,000 when the investor demanded the money be returned. The man later died by suicide. Wohl claimed that the difference was due to losses, but the NFA found that Wohl's trading accounts "appeared to have made, not lost, money overall". Some of the money, the NFA alleged, had been diverted into Wohl's mother's brokerage accounts. The NFA said Wohl made an unbalanced presentation of profit potential and risk of loss to clients, and had misled investors by claiming to have been trading for 10 years, which would have been since he was eight or nine years old. Wohl hid from NFA investigators when they came to his house, and his father, an attorney, threatened to sue the NFA for harassment. In March 2017, the NFA banned Wohl for life.
A 2016 complaint by the same man resulted in the Riverside Superior Court in Riverside County, California, issuing felony arrest warrants on August 9, 2019, for Wohl and his former business partner, Matthew Johnson, on charges of unlawful sale of securities. The Riverside County District Attorney's Office alleged that Wohl and Johnson violated California law by selling unqualified securities through Montgomery Assets between July 27 and August 27, 2016. In July 2016, an investigator from the district attorney's office contacted Wohl and Johnson, who at the time were running the Montgomery Assets firm, and claimed to represent a client who was interested in investing with them. According to the 2019 arrest warrant, the investigation resulted in an apparent attempt by Wohl and his partner to sell an unregistered security. Wohl was taken into custody on August 19, 2019. He ultimately pleaded guilty to four felony counts, and in 2024 was sentenced to two years of probation.
In 2017, the Arizona Corporation Commission issued a cease-and-desist order to Wohl and his three investment funds after it found they were in violation of securities laws. The ACC charged Wohl and his companies with 14 counts of securities fraud, including falsely representing investment risks, misrepresenting the amounts of assets managed, and falsely claiming in online advertisements on Craigslist that he, then 18, and his business partner, then 27, had more than 35 years of experience flipping homes. Wohl at one point claimed that he was managing 178 client accounts and combined total assets under management of as much as $10,000,000, although the ACC said that he only had thirteen clients and an AUM of around $500,000. Wohl was ordered by the ACC to pay $32,919 in restitution and $5,000 in penalties. In May 2020, the ACC announced that they were working with the Arizona Attorney General's office in collection efforts against Wohl, who had not made any payments towards the fines.
Surefire Intelligence
In 2018, Wohl created and registered the company Surefire Intelligence, LLC. Reporters who investigated Surefire Intelligence in October 2018, prompted by an alleged [|plot to frame Robert Mueller for sexual assault] that same month, found that the company had been created by Wohl just a few weeks earlier and that its official phone number redirected to a voicemail inbox for a phone number belonging to Wohl's mother. They also reported that employee photographs on the website were actually photographs of people unrelated to Surefire, including actor Christoph Waltz. News agencies found profiles of supposed Surefire Intelligence employees on the LinkedIn professional networking site which used photographs of unrelated celebrities as profile images; a photograph of Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli was used on a profile claiming to be the company's Tel Aviv station chief, and a profile for a person named Matthew Cohen used an altered photo of Wohl. A journalist visited the address listed on Surefire Intelligence's website and found it to be the location of an unrelated company.Soon after creating the company, Wohl advertised it as a team of private investigators on classified ad site Craigslist. In the ad, Wohl falsely claimed that Surefire consisted of former Israeli intelligence agents and various other investigative experts. At least once, Wohl posed as investigator Matthew Cohen to a potential client who responded to the ad. One paid him a $1,200 advance fee for help in recovering her stolen truck, but Wohl never performed any investigative services for the fee, nor did he return the money or contact her again.
Minutes after Michael Avenatti was reported being arrested on suspicion of domestic violence on November 14, 2018, the Surefire Twitter account posted a news story about the arrest, adding, "Surefire Intelligence strikes again". The following day, Avenatti suggested that Wohl was behind the arrest, and tweeted, "First Mueller and now me. When we are fully exonerated I am coming for you Jacob Wohl aka Surefire." Avenatti was ultimately not charged in relation to the reported incident.
Kidnapping allegations
Merritt Corrigan, deputy White House liaison for the US Agency for International Development, was fired from her position on August 3, 2020, shortly after unlocking her previously private Twitter account and sending several anti-LGBT tweets. The same day, she announced she would be holding a press conference on August 6 with Wohl and Burkman to expose what she described as "rampant anti-Christian sentiment" at USAID. A press release from Wohl and Burkman claimed that Wohl had "been working behind the scenes with Corrigan for months".On the afternoon of August 4, Corrigan deleted her tweets from the previous day. Wohl claimed that Corrigan was being convinced by associates of President Donald Trump to go back on her claims against the USAID, and Burkman said that Corrigan had "buyer's remorse" for sending the tweets. Later that day, Corrigan issued a statement apologizing for her tweets, and alleged: "I did NOT send these messages, and while I vehemently protested about them being sent in my name, my devices were not in my control. I see now that I was part of an abusive scheme and I was used to attack people that have nothing to do with me". She said that she would not be participating in any press conferences, and claimed that "individuals... forced me to hand over my devices so they could control me and the output in my name".
Wohl released his own statement saying that he was being falsely accused of kidnapping, and that he and Burkman would still be holding the August 6 press conference. He also stated that he and Corrigan had been involved in a romantic and sexual relationship. At the press conference, Wohl and Burkman denied the kidnapping allegations, which they claimed had been fabricated by far-right activist Raheem Kassam, a long-time friend of Corrigan's. Following the press conference, Wohl published a 90-second recording of a conversation between him and Corrigan which he said exonerated him of wrongdoing, though according to journalist Ford Fischer, it "shows Corrigan accusing Wohl of preventing her from having contact with her friends, and Wohl accusing Kassam of creating the situation. Corrigan doesn't appear to say anything corroborating Wohl's account of events".
The events formed the basis for Maximum Truth, a 2023 mockumentary directed by David Stassen.