1 Boring Old Man

Roger Stone, Political Animal
"Above all, attack, attack, attack–never defend."

… I hadn’t had dealings with Stone since the Sharpton campaign, but became convinced we needed to renew our acquaintance in August. Stone had been retained in June, for $20,000 a month, to help demoralized New York State Republicans gain ground from the caped-crusader/governor Eliot Spitzer (who many, including Spitzer, seem to regard as some sort of cross between Robert Kennedy and Jesus). Stone and a loose collection of co-conspirators began battering the governor for his administration’s numerous ethical lapses. (When I called Stone for this story, he asked if I’d gotten all the anti-Spitzer emails. I told him I wasn’t sure, it seemed like I’d been receiving five a day for months from all sorts of mysteriously named accounts. "Good," he said. "It’s working.")

In July, Spitzer took a major hit when the state’s Democratic attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, chastised the governor’s office for asking the state police to keep tabs on Republican state senate leader Joseph Bruno (Stone’s client) and for peddling travel documents to the press to try and create a "Choppergate" scandal. Bruno was cleared of misusing the state’s air fleet, and Stone and his associates have kept up a relentless anti-Spitzer email blitz. (One of their recent Spitzer missives showed Osama bin Laden driving a New York City cab, referring to Spitzer’s bone-headed play of allowing illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses without proof of citizenship.)

Stone seemed more interested, however, in refocusing attention on an old scandal that had been wheezing along: a more complicated story, but one he regarded as having possible criminal repercussions thanks to a shady tangle of loans. Stone believes in waging multifront wars, and his philosophy on the subject is one of the most sacred of Stone’s Rules, right up there with "Don’t order fish at a steakhouse," "White shirt+tan face=confidence," and "Undertakers and chauffeurs are the only people who should be allowed by law to wear black suits." It goes like this: "Hit it from every angle. Open multiple fronts on your enemy. He must be confused, and feel besieged on every side."

At issue is a $5 million campaign loan given to Spitzer by his multimillionaire father, Bernard, during the 1998 race for attorney general. During that campaign, Spitzer claimed that he’d secured the loan by mortgaging apartments given to him by his real-estate developer father. He appears to have lied, however, having later admitted that his father was essentially financing the campaign by paying off the loan–a possible violation of campaign law. The story wasn’t nearly as sexy as Choppergate until the Spitzer camp announced that on Monday, August 6, the 83-year-old Bernard Spitzer had received a message from a phone traced to Roger Stone’s Central Park South apartment. A voice that appeared to be Stone’s said:

This is a message for Bernard Spitzer. You will be subpoenaed to testify before the senate committee on investigations on your shady campaign loans. You will be compelled by the senate sergeant at arms. If you resist this subpoena, you will be arrested and brought to Albany–and there’s not a goddamn thing your phony, psycho, piece of s– son can do about it. Bernie, your phony loans are about to catch up with you. You will be forced to tell the truth. The fact that your son is a pathological liar will be known to all.

Stone denied it was him. Bruno didn’t take a position, but threw Stone overboard anyway, terminating his contract. And everyone I know who knows Roger Stone had the same reaction: Of course he did it. I didn’t even need to hear the tape (which pretty much cinches it) before coming to this conclusion. The speech is absent his spark-ling wit, but the rest of the touches are his: the B-movie-gangster intimidation, the high-wire dramatics, the swinging song-of-the-street cadences à la Sinatra abusing an underling after a couple of Jacks on the rocks.

Over the next week, Stone offered an array of exotic alibis, almost as though he were joking. Possibly, he was. (He did, after all, in the middle of the hubbub, get Richard Nixon’s head tattooed on his back at the Ink Monkey in Venice Beach and send a photo of it to reporters, just out of puckish spite.) He initially claimed it couldn’t have been him, since at the time of the call in question, he’d been attending the play Frost/Nixon. Reporters unearthed a small inconsistency; there’d been no performance that night. Stone posted a review of the play on his Stonezone website anyway, recommending it to Spitzer since "It underlines the dangers of hubris and the inexorable web a public official tangles himself in when he tells a lie." He admitted, however, that he’d confused the dates–an honest mistake. He may be a dirty trickster, but he’s not a philistine; he knows the theaters are dark on Mondays.

From there, the story only got stranger. Various other alibis had Stone suggesting somebody used "spoofing" technology to make the phone call look as if it had originated from his apartment. He also offered the possibility that a disgruntled former colleague–and stand-up comedian/impressionist–named Randy Credico impersonated Stone to sandbag him. Credico denied it, telling the Washington Post, "That’s hilarious." Stone also floated the -theory that the landlord of his Central Park South building, H. Dale Hemmerdinger, who is a Spitzer supporter and his pick to head the Metropolitan Transit Authority, might have allowed someone into Stone’s apartment to make the call.

Later, Stone made public a two-page apology he’d written to Hemmerdinger. He said that he regretted "any inconvenience or distress my initial comments may have caused .??.??. despite our political differences, I must say that 40 Central Park South is an excellent building that is extremely professionally operated by capable employees at all levels." Then came the cherry on top: "I am certain that you will render great public service to the MTA."

On its face, the letter appears to be your standard inoculation against potential litigation, but rereading it I get chills. For me, red flags are flapping every which way, as they would for anyone who knows one of the most sacrosanct of Stone’s Rules: "Always praise ’em before you hit ’em."

Of Easter Eggs, Spitzer and Stones In Glass Houses

The latest revelation is, of course, that the mondo bondage Republican dirty trickster Roger Stone is knee deep in the primordial muck on the Spitzer hunt. Sex, prostitutes, money, power and dirty political tricks; who could have ever imagined that the Stoner might be involved? Eh, okay, we all should have known. By now, you have all probably got the basics on the Stone angle that has emerged; but just in case, here is a brief recap. Roger Stone is a long time GOP dirty trick and bag man. On Friday March 21, by way of a McClatchey article from the Miami Herald, we learned that: "Almost four months before Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned in a sex scandal, a lawyer for Republican political operative Roger Stone sent a letter to the FBI alleging that Spitzer ”used the services of high-priced call girls” while in Florida. The letter, dated Nov. 19, said Miami Beach resident Stone learned the information from ”a social contact in an adult-themed club.” It offered one potentially identifying detail: The man in question hadn’t taken off his calf-length black socks "during the sex act.”

Interesting that Roger is throwing these Stones, because he has a bit of a glass house problem in the tawdry sex department. You might have picked up on the part where he supposedly learned his information at "an adult-themed club". Now that is the one nugget of info in this mess that is undoubtedly accurate. You see, Stone and his wife are notorious spouse swapping kinky players on the adult swinger circuit. Family values the country can be proud of!

You know, I don’t really care what people do with their private sex lives as an issue of morality; but I do care deeply about the integrity and propriety of American criminal law and the Department of Justice that drives it. In that regard, here, here, here and here are the affidavits, complaint and prior stories of note in the Spitzer case that I have seen to date impinging on the genesis of the case and that are in the public domain (if anybody is aware of others not listed, please leave a link in comments). Here is my question: Just who is the A1 cutout for whom here? Stone says he relayed the dirt on Spitzer to the Feds only four months ago; exactly how are we, the American public, supposed to reconcile that with the sworn statements and posturing of our Federal officers and DOJ/US Attorneys that are contained in the record to date that indicate the investigation is much older? If Stone was corroborating evidence for information already possessed by the Feds, why wouldn’t they disclose it? Because, last I heard, said Federal authorities were still not supposed to lie, omit material facts, and otherwise disingenuously mislead the Court. There is no historical record of such perfidy with this Administration right?