Posted on 08/22/2007 8:04:28 PM PDT by neverdem
That was fast.
In a just-released statement, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno called the Roger Stone phone call flap "a distraction from the real issues - the abuse of government power, political espionage and a cover-up of information," but said the consultant has agreed to "resign and end his relationship with us at our request."
"We are not going to let this incident become a distraction or to be used as an excuse to hamper people from getting at the truth," Bruno said. The investigations into the Executive Chamber are continuing. We hope that both District Attorney Soares and the Ethics Commission will conduct full and thorough investigations to get at the truth that the public demands."
Consultant to resign, denies making call
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ALBANY, N.Y. - A prominent political consultant for the state Senate Republicans has agreed to resign following reports he made a threatening phone call to the father of Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer.
Roger Stone, who began working for the Senate Republican Campaign Committee in June, denied making the taped call and said he was "set up."
But Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said the news reports on the allegation "can only serve as a distraction from the real issues _ the abuse of government power, political espionage and a cover up of information."
Bruno said Stone "has agreed to resign and end his relationship with us at our request."
Lawyers representing Bernard Spitzer said their investigation showed the Aug. 6 call came from a phone at Stone's Manhattan apartment. The caller _ recorded on an answering machine _ tells the 83-year-old real estate developer that he's going to be subpoenaed to testify before the state Senate investigations committee about 1994 campaign loans to his son, then threatens his arrest if he doesn't appear and uses expletives and insults referring to the governor.
Letters about the call were sent to Sen. George Winner, an Elmira Republican who chairs the Senate Committee on Investigations and Government Operations, and to the state Ethics Commission, according to Spitzer attorney Jeffrey Moerdler. He told the Times Union of Albany he didn't request an investigation, but the matter is now with government investigators.
Stone, 55, said the phone number cited by Bernard Spitzer's lawyers is his, but the apartment is owned by a Spitzer fundraiser and someone else could have gotten inside to make the call or used other technology to mimic his voice and that number.
Stone worked for the Committee to Re-Elect the President that helped President Nixon beat George McGovern in 1972 and for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984. In 2000, he helped George W. Bush win the presidential vote recount in Florida.
Stone told The Associated Press he did not make the Spitzer call and it "has to be a fabrication."
"I would submit that such a message could be made, fabricated, and I will have voice experts inspect it," Stone said. "Just as they tried to set Senator Bruno up, they are trying to set me up, I guess because I have been effective on the Senate Republican Majority."
Winner said Wednesday he hadn't yet received the letter from Spitzer's lawyers or the tape, which has already been posted on the Internet. He also said that Stone has nothing to do with his committee.
"As such I think that they should have referred this probably to the Manhattan District Attorney's Office rather than me," Winner said. "The allegations would appear to be aggravated harassment. I'd report it to the district attorney's office if it occurred."
Walter Ayres, spokesman for the ethics commission, said the letter is being reviewed and the commission will take any appropriate action, but they "only have jurisdiction over the executive branch of state government."
Bruno, a Rensselaer County Republican, and Gov. Spitzer have been at odds for months and sparring most recently over the efforts of two Spitzer aides to discredit Bruno by releasing details of his state-funded travel for both public and political business.
On July 30, Winner's committee held a reform hearing where Republican senators called for independent investigations into whether the Spitzer aides misused state police for political purposes in tracking Bruno's use of state aircraft.
Both Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and Inspector General Kristine Hamann found no illegal conduct but criticized two Spitzer who had state police gather particularly detailed information on Bruno's use of state aircraft.
Bruno called it political espionage.
Spitzer has said he didn't know about it and apologized. Winner said his committee is not investigating Spitzer's 1994 campaign loans from his father, but in a July 23 letter he asked the Senate Elections Committee "to look into the issue of loans as it relates to the ability of wealthy self-financed candidates and the level playing field issue as they compete against lesser, ordinary type of joes."
"And to the extent that what happened in 1994 and 1998 is in need of statutory revisions, then that would be appropriate for the elections committee to look at in the context of campaign finance reform," Winner said.
The loan at issue was given by Bernard Spitzer to help his son repay a $4.3 million bank loan in the 1994 Democratic primary for attorney general, which Eliot Spitzer lost.
If Spitzer survives this, he’ll be Hillary’s AG.
Mark my words, he’s exactly the kind of “enforcer” she wants in that job.
I don’t know anything about Stone but this whole thing doesn’t make any sense unless he’s just completely unhinged. If he’s an unethical win-at-any-cost political operative, why would he make a call like this from his own phone? Like he’s never heard that phone calls can be traced? Or imagined no one would make any effort to trace it? And leaving a taped message??? And what on earth could he have hoped to accomplish with this call? It’s not like he was tipping Spitzer Sr. off that some previously well-kept secret had slipped out and was about to be publicized unless he Spitzer Sr/Jr did what Stone wanted. The matter referred to was already publicly known. I just don’t get it.
I do not believe Roger Stone is stupid enough to have done this. It’s not even a close call.
New Yawk politics is real ugly. Sounds like they don’t want to find out who set him up.
Hillary has some pretty high negatives to overcome; however, either way it's rather depressing: she's in the White House or the Senate, maybe for the rest of her life.
IIRC, he was once caught years ago doing some kind of sex ad with his wife, and he was naked I think, lol, it was gross.
Does anyone else remember this?
Roger Stone has always given me the creeps.
Dyed blond hair, strange ways.
But he would have to be super stupid to do this.
I thought he was gay!
I could have been wrong...
I must take satisfaction at least that before this turd became Governor two years ago, I would regularly give him the finger while driving my taxi. THREE times I did it! He would always jog near 79th street and 5th in the morning, probably coming out of Central Park, and three times “Hey Elliot!” BAM! Nailed him again and again while he stood there helpless.
Rats may BS the rest of the public but they don`t BS me. By God, I got to get a video camera. And if anyone doesn`t think this POS is a punk, my ticket rate went up 1000% afterwards. To this day I`m still paying it off. The NYPD traffic enforcement and TLC followed me literally right on my bumper block after block until I did the slightest thing wrong and wham, 7 or 8 tickets at once.
This Spitzer needs a major Gray Davis type recall shoved right up his arse. He`s a punk who thought he was God once he became Governor, but to hell with him and his punk father.
Were the ‘threats’ lawful or unlawful? If lawfulm what’s the problem. The US Supreme Couret has ruled “What one may lawfully do, one may threaten to do.”
Stone was a Young Republican leader in the 70's and worked for Presidential campaigns starting with Reagan. He is a big deal political consultant and tends to lean towards RINOs. I knew him in the 70's and it certainly sounds like him. Never heard him on Imus, somewhat surprised that he comes over as an anti-Bush Republican -- no way to get a job from GOP types. I am astonished by the idea that he would do something so very stupid, but I have been surprised before by 'smart' folks doing stupid things.
Thinks for the link. I was going to retrieve that link. I had too windows open at the time I posted the story.
You could well be right.
For the sake of America, let’s hope that doesn’t happen.
What I do remember is Stone’s first wife, Ann, founding Republicans For Choice. And Roger has been an ally of Al Sharpton’s.
I don’t know, but they didn’t sound like a big deal. Commen# 11 has the audio link. I had to strain to hear it. It didn’t sound like blackmail to me.
I awoke this morning to false allegations in the New York press that I had made a threatening phone call to Governor Spitzer's 82 year old father, leaving a voice-mail message.
Let me assure you I made no such call.
Before you shed a tear for poor old 82 year old Mr. Spitzer, read the Weekly Standard account of his pattern of illegal loans and gifts to finance his son's campaigns.
The same Spitzer operatives who were caught red-handed trying to set Senator Bruno up are now trying to set me up because they have deemed that I have been an effective advisor to Senator Bruno and the Republican Senate Campaign Committee.
The only proof that such a call was received is a claim by Bernard Spitzer's lawyer. Frankly I doubt that such a call was made or received. After listening to the alleged "voicemail," the New York Times' "could not conclude that Mr. Stone's voice was on Mr. Spitzer's voice mail."
The matter of the shady loans should be investigated. Eliot Spitzer perjured himself (that is lied under oath) in a deposition in a lawsuit by one of his opponents from the 1994 race regarding the source of these funds.
In 1998 Spitzer ultimately admitted he was lying and admitted his father had paid off his campaign bank loans only days after he lost the Democratic Primary. Spitzer said he had executed a note to pay his father back at 7.8% interest. IN FACT SPITZER ONLY MADE PAYMENTS THROUGH THE END OF 1999 WHEN THE LOAN WAS "SUBSUMED" INTO A LARGER LOAN WITH HIS FATHER - TERMS UNKNOWN.
Once the public was no longer paying attention, Daddy quietly took care of the loans - again!
The Shell Game Continues. Since the bank loan was secured by REAL ESTATE gifted to Eliot Spitzer by his father, the money is all Bernard's anyway. There is no doubt that Eliot Spitzer and his father willfully circumvented the State Election Law and made a mockery of what was then a $100,000 contribution limit and then lied about it for four years.
You may recall that the landlord of my apartment building held a penthouse fundraiser for the New York Democratic State Committee on June 12 in which donors were asked to bundle $94,600. I held a rival fundraiser for the New York Republican Party at $15 a head on that same date.
Since that time the landlord Dale Hemmerdinger, a long time Spitzer fundraiser and appointee to the MTA, has been hostile and has hassled me through management about supposedly late rent checks. I have had an apartment at this location for (10) years. I have never had a late rent payment. Veteran employees of the building have warned me that Hemmerdinger "has it out for me".
Yes, the landlord has keys and full access to my apartment which is generally vacant as I stay on an average one night a week, so a phone call could have been made from my apartment to create a record. I am reviewing the phone bill to determine whether such a call was even made.
I have contacted the FBI's former top voice analyst to determine whether the so-called "voice-mail" has been edited, spliced or doctored and whether it is even my voice. He will also determine whether the tape is indeed a voice-mail or the product of some other form of audio surveillance.
Are the Spitzerites capable of illegal wire tapping? I believe they are.
Given my frequent appearances on CNN, MSNBC, FOX and NY-1 the fabrication of a voice tape would be simple - again people who falsify state helicopter records will falsify a voice tape. Listening to the tape there is a strange pause after "This is a message for Bernard Spitzer" leading one to believe this a cut and paste job of some kind.
All of this is, of course, is an attempt to distract people from the fact that no aide to the Governor is yet to testify under oath in the Troopergate matter and no e-mail records for Spitzer and his aides have been reviewed other then the ones given to Attorney General Cuomo. Yes, I have advised Republicans to seek full disclosure.
The guy who makes threatening phone calls to people is Eliot Spitzer not Roger Stone. Ask John Whitehead, Senator Larkin or Sean Hannity. On the night this call was allegedly made, I was at the theater catching the play NIXON and FROST. I highly recommend it to Governor Spitzer. It shows you what hubris and lying brings you.
And that will be my last comment on the matter.
He’s probably cozy with that slime ball Roman Buhler who heads up the Republican Youth Majority.
Thanks for the comment and URL.
most interesting.
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