A NY state Republican political thug ‘consultant’, Roger J. Stone Jr., is alleged to have been harassing the 83 year old father of the Democratic attorney general, Elliot Spitzer, with threatening late night phone calls – traceable directly back to aforesaid thug “consultant”.
True to GOP form, Stone is denying everything despite a lot of alleged proof against him. As is his right, of course.
But Stone’s not satisfied with barely-believable, tissue-thin denials, oh no – he’s doing the classic Republican projection thing and accusing Democrats of setting him up by invading his apartment and using his phone:
Mr. Stone, a seasoned practitioner of hard-edged politics who worked for Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan and for George W. Bush in the 2000 recount battle, adamantly denied the allegation in an interview, calling it “the ultimate dirty trick.” He asserted that allies of Governor Spitzer may have gained access to a phone in his Manhattan apartment to make the threatening call.
The message, left at Bernard Spitzer’s Manhattan office just before 10 p.m. on Aug. 6, says that Mr. Spitzer, 83, a wealthy real estate developer, would be “compelled by the Senate sergeant at arms” to testify about “shady campaign loans” he made to his son during Eliot Spitzer’s unsuccessful campaign for attorney general in 1994.
Mr. Winner’s committee has been holding hearings into a scheme by some of Governor Spitzer’s top aides to use the State Police to embarrass the Senate Republican leader, Joseph L. Bruno. Senate Republicans have said they were considering reviewing Bernard Spitzer’s 1994 loans to his son.
“If you resist this subpoena, you will be arrested and brought to Albany,” the message says, according to a transcript. The message also calls Governor Spitzer a “phony” and a “psycho.”
Bernard Spitzer’s lawyers hired Kroll Associates, the private investigative firm, to trace the message, and their report was included with the letter to Mr. Winner. The firm traced the number that appeared on Mr. Spitzer’s caller identification system, linking it to listings under the name of Mr. Stone’s wife, Nydia.
“The review of publicly available records,” the report says, “strongly suggests that the number is controlled by Roger Stone.”
“Nice family you got there, shame if anything happened to it…”
Who is Roger Stone? Here’s his entry in Sourcewatch:
Roger J. Stone, Jr. is a long-time Republican dirty-tricks operative who led the mob that shut down the Miami-Dade County recount and helped make George W. Bush president in 2000. He was also a campaign strategist during the presidential campaigns of Presidents Nixon, Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush. He is the chairman of the Fort Hill Group, a Washington, D.C.-based public affairs firm.
Stone was also a strategist for the 1981 and 1985 campaigns for governor of New Jersey by Thomas H. Kean, who was later appointed by President Bush to chair the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9-11 Commission). [1]
During the 2004 presidential primary, Stone served as a behind-the-scenes consultant to black firebrand Al Sharpton’s campaign to win the Democratic Party nomination, prompting speculation that Sharpton’s campaign was actually a stealth operation to weaken the party’s chances of winning in the general election. Writing in the Village Voice, Wayne Barrett noted that Stone was “financing, staffing, and orchestrating the presidential campaign of Reverend Al Sharpton. … Sharpton has a little-noticed history of Republican machinations inconsistent with his fiery rhetoric. … [A]ny Sharpton-connected outrage against the party could either lower black turnout in several key close states, or move votes to Bush.” [2]
The New York Times has also reported on the strange-bedfellows relationship between Stone and Sharpton, noting that Stone was behind several of Sharpton’s most visible campaign tactics, including scrutiny of primary candidate Howard Dean’s record of minority appointees when he was governor of Vermont. [3]
In September 2004, rumors circulated that Stone was the original source of apparently forged documents related to the National Guard service of U.S. President George W. Bush. Stone denied the charge. “I have nothing whatsoever to do with this,” he said. “I’m a firm believer in political hardball, but I draw the line at forged documents.”
Nice guy, huh?
I have no idea what the rights and wrongs, if any, of Spitzer’s campaign funding troubles are, although I expect the late Steve Gillliard could’ve demystified it in a few short pithy sentences.
Even though the Democrats are hardly clean themselves it hardly matters in the face of such blatant and unrepentant bullying of a family member to put pressure on a politician.
What’s next? The kidnap and ransom of small children? Ears in boxes? The language is violent enough.
In the message, the caller says, referring to a potential subpoena: “There is not a goddamn thing your phony, psycho, piece-of-shit son can do about it. Bernie, your phony loans are about to catch up with you. You will be forced to tell the truth and the fact that your son’s a pathological liar will be known to all.”
It’s common in Europe to portray New York city and state poliitics as a real world analogue of a tv drama with an operatic title (see how delicately I tiptoe around the potential libel of a whole population, some of them Italian and touchy with it), crossed with a particularly lurid episode of Law & Order. But after a 70-odd year diet of movies glorifying gangsterism and violence as the the epitome of the free market in action, can you blame us?
But our recieved wisdom is out of date in certain respects.These days the mob aren’t wiseguys in slightly-too-loud-suits with vulgar accents: no, they wear Brooks Brothers suits and Hermes ties and are attached to political lobbying firms and go to church and the country club on Sunday. They’re respectable consultants – but although the faces and the brand image may have changed, the criminal methods are just the same – lie, cheat, steal, blackmail, and when all else fails threaten violence. Dirty tricks and ratfuckery are the regular MO of the NYGOP.
Take former Westchester County DA, Jeannine Pirro, who hired Judith Regan’s corrupt former lover (remember them screwing in the apartment for the resting 9/11 firefighters as the ruins still smouldered), Giuliani blue-eyed boy and former candidate for Homeland security chief Bernie Kerik to bug her allegedly adulterous husband’s boat so she could divorce him and run for governor.
This is the woman that the Republicans put up for NY state attorney general against Spitzer, the guy whose father their goons are now harassing:
Jeanine Pirro was desperate to prove her husband was cheating on her.
She came under the scrutiny of six different law enforcement agencies, including the New York Police Department, the city’s Department of Investigation and prosecutors in the Bronx and Westchester.
According to documents now in the hands of several defense attorneys, Pirro and the former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik were apparently talking about planting a hidden device aboard her husband’s boat. Her possible motive may have been to see if he was having an affair.
Sources told NewsChannel 4 that in one conversation, Pirro complained that one of Kerik’s employees was reluctant to board Albert Pirro’s boat.
Jeanine Pirro suggests, “We can just simply say, if there is an issue, that I am redecorating it for our anniversary.” She complains that Kerik’s man is, “uncomfortable with that.”
Kerik responded by saying, “But Jeanine, I’m having the same f——g problem with everybody. Everybody is panic stricken because it’s you. I’ve gone out on a limb. I had two other people looking at this. It’s a problem.”
Pirro said, “What am I supposed to do, Bernie? Watch him f–k her every night? What am I supposed to do? I can go on the boat. I’ll put the f—–g thing on myself.”
Minutes later, sources said Kerik called a contact at Giuliani Partners, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s consulting firm, asking him to find a recording device.
Sources said the FBI and Justice Department have been asked to look into whether Pirro and Kerik also might have violated federal laws.
In the wiretapped conversations, Pirro appeared to discuss how her husband’s alleged indiscretions hurt her politically.
Without her husband, sources said she told Kerik, “I move into the governor’s mansion.”
Republican politicians are now the acceptable face of organised crime. Mob loyalty runs right through the GOP from the top to the bottom, like the lettering in a stick of rock.
