Far-Right Catfish Hold Awkward Presser to Continue Buttigieg Attacks

Right-wing trolls Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman held a press conference on Wednesday morning that was originally planned for unveiling alleged evidence that Mayor Pete Buttigieg sexually assaulted a young gay man.

However, the event that Wohl said would face "hundreds of leftist protestors" quickly disolved into an awkward show where no evidence was produced and ambitions to exploit the sympathies of the LGBTQ community became clear.

No protestors arrived to the event that was interrupted by garbage men who needed to take out the trash located just outside of the home where the event was held.

In advance, Burkman announced on Twitter that he expected a protest at the event.

"Hundreds of leftist protestors are set to descend on our Wednesday Press conference We WILL NOT surrender to the mob!," he wrote. "We've called in extra security to guard our safety and that of our partners in the media."

Burkman's post included a link to an Eventbrite RSVP page for the counter-protest. That e-vote encouraged folks to "come out and protest far-right homophobic bigots Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman as they give a press conference against Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

But keen-eyed observers quickly noted something else odd.

As noted by Mediaite, the original Eventbrite listed encouraged attendees to RSVP to wohlthinktank@gmail.com, an address frequently used by Wohl for past events.

After an initial story published, the address changed to amygreentompkins@gmail.com. Eventually, the Eventbrite page went down permanently.

Wohl and Burkman first targeted Buttigieg with a Medium post accusing the South Bend, Ind. Mayor of sexual assault. That article has since been taken down as well. But the supposed source of the allegation, Hunter Kelly, quickly debunked them. He told The Advocatethat he'd been flown to Washington, D.C. by Wohl and Burkman on false pretenses. Kelly said the men then set up fake social media accounts for him to spread the false allegations.

The new counter-protest appears to show Wohl and Burkman ginning up fake attention around what has already been shown to be a false premise.

Though notably, the habitual sloppiness has generated a fresh round of media attention on the trolls. Author Ryan Holiday wrote in a USA Today column Thursday that such interest in fact is exactly what figures like Wohl desire.

"The fact that Wohl's attempts to damage the reputation of special counsel Robert Mueller and to smear presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg failed was probably as much by design as it was from incompetence," Holiday writes.

Wohl and Burkman stated at the press conference that they will be sueing The Daily Beast over their reporting last week that ran parallel to The Advocate and found that the two men engaged in strategies to hurt the campaign of Buttigieg by asking men to make false accusations towards the candidate.

In response, the original subject of the allegations, Hunter Kelly, released a statement calling Wohl and Burkman "chronic liars" and re-stated that the entire incident was based on untrue allegations.

Wohl and Burkman stated prior to event that Kelly was going to attend in order to reverse his story once again and provide more evidence of the alleged assault. However, the college student tells The Advocate he had no plans to attend and is currently in Michigan where he is finishing his fourth year of college.