I use the word "alleged" because even a small-potatoes blogger should at least try to follow the rules.
That said, no one paying any attention at all can dismiss the real potential for disaster here.
These assholes ain't playin'.
Weeks before the 2020 presidential election, infamous political operative Roger Stone sat across from his associate Sal Greco at a restaurant in Florida.
At the time, Greco was an NYPD cop working security for Stone on the side. Their conversation, at Caffe Europa in Fort Lauderdale, focused on two House Democrats for whom Stone harbors particular animosity, Jerry Nadler and Eric Swalwell.
In audio of the conversation obtained exclusively by Mediaite, Stone made threatening comments about the two lawmakers.
“It’s time to do it,” Stone told Greco. “Let’s go find Swalwell. It’s time to do it. Then we’ll see how brave the rest of them are. It’s time to do it. It’s either Nadler or Swalwell has to die before the election. They need to get the message. Let’s go find Swalwell and get this over with. I’m just not putting up with this shit anymore.”
A source familiar with the discussion told Mediate they believed Stone’s remarks were serious. “It was definitely concerning that he was constantly planning violence with an NYPD officer and other militia groups,” the source said.
Both Nadler and Swalwell serve on the House Judiciary Committee. At the time of the Caffe Europa conversation, Nadler had announced the committee would be investigating then-President Donald Trump’s decision to commute Stone’s sentence after he was convicted of federal crimes in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.
“A jury found Roger Stone guilty,” Nadler wrote on Twitter in July 2020. “By commuting his sentence, President Trump has infected our judicial system with partisanship and cronyism and attacked the rule of law. @House Judiciary will conduct an aggressive investigation into this brazen corruption.”
The source told Mediaite of Stone: “Stone had been at war with Nadler and Swalwell for years. He just hates them.”
“He just wanted to get Trump back into office so these things would stop,” the source added.
Stone was convicted of obstruction, witness tampering, and lying to Congress in the Mueller investigation. Prosecutors sought a nine-year prison sentence for the longtime Republican operative, but Trump’s Justice Department reportedly intervened to impose a less severe sentence. Stone’s sentence was eventually commuted by Trump days before reporting to prison.
The intervention from the Justice Department prompted Aaron Zelinsky, the prosecutor and Mueller deputy who led the case against Stone, to recuse himself from the case in protest. Mediaite reported last week that Stone was caught on tape in December 2020 urging Greco to “punish” Zelinsky.
“He needs to be punished,” Stone told Greco in the audio. “You have to abduct him and punish him. That has to be done. It will be easy to abduct him because he is a weakling.”
Stone denied making those comments, claiming they were generated by AI. He has previously claimed videos of his comments are actually “deep fakes.” In response to a request for comment on the remarks aimed at Swalwell and Nadler, Stone said, “Total nonsense. I’ve never said anything of the kind more AI manipulation. You asked me to respond to audios that you don’t let me hear and you don’t identify a source for. Absurd.”
Greco did not deny the comments, but said in a text to Mediaite: “I don’t think your reader is interested in ancient political fodder.”
Greco, who acted as security for Stone and was with the operative during the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol soon after the 2020 election, was fired by the NYPD over his association with Stone. An NYPD spokesperson confirmed to Mediaite that Greco was terminated in August 2022.
Nadler and Swalwell did not respond to requests for comment.
No comments:
Post a Comment