Roger Stone

I first met Laura Loomer in the New York office of Project Veritas. She was blonde then, feisty, smart and ambitious. She was also fearless. Because of her outspoken views regarding the dangers of radical Islam – views that I largely share – her career as an investigative journalist and advocate was severely hampered. She became possibly the most censored woman on the planet; forbidden from placing her warnings about Sharia law and radical Islam on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Even Uber banned her. In 2020, Loomer decided to make a valiant race for Congress against Democrat incumbent Lois Frankel in an overwhelmingly blue Florida district, which happened to include Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s club and winter residence.

Many commentators (including yours truly) have pointed out that America is divided more now than it has been since the late 1850s and the run up to the Civil War. But as usual, I may have understated the case.  That, anyway, is what Vivek Ramaswamy would say. In a remarkable, just-published interview with Tom Klingenstein, Ramaswamy several time insists that we are not in a pre-war situation. It’s worse than that. “We are,” he insists, “absolutely in a war with the fate of the country at stake.” Hyperbolic? I don’t think so. The war, he acknowledges, could and likely will get worse. But we can already see the troops deployed and the battle lines drawn.

Which Spectator contributor will be jailed next? Taki and Michael Avenatti have both done time after bylining in these august pages — and Roger Stone only swerved his 40-month sentence by the grace of President Trump. It could be argued that The Spectator’s decision to publish Michael Avenatti was not our finest moment. The Creepy Porn Lawyer, as Tucker Carlson insisted on calling him, is not the best egg in the anti-Trump basket. But we believe in free speech, and Avenatti was eager to trash Beto O’Rourke and that’s always good idea.

At a drinks party in Washington DC just after Donald Trump was elected, someone from the old regime told me: ‘This will end with tanks on the White House lawn.’ It was a popular opinion that night, although there was confusion over whether the tank barrels would point inwards or outwards. Would Trump do something so outrageous that he would have to be removed by the US military? Or would he declare himself president-for-life with help from the generals? At the time, I put this down to shock at Trump’s unexpected victory, an early example of Trump Derangement Syndrome. But now, in the final stages of the 2020 campaign, you hear speculation like this from both sides of the political divide. Dictatorship, state of emergency, civil war?

While I have great confidence in President Trump’s skill as a debater and recognize him as perhaps the greatest counter-puncher in American political history, I strongly urge him not to attend the second Presidential Commission debate scheduled for October 15 in Miami. It is important to note that the so-called 'Presidential Commission on Debates' is not appointed by the President, is not a commission, and its real purpose is to limit debate. The Presidential Commission on debates is a privately run nonprofit. The President and the Democratic candidate for President have no obligation to agree to the Commission’s format, moderators or length.

Is the Death Star about to implode? Trump campaign manager (at least at this writing) Brad Parscale bragged some weeks back that he was about to pull the big guns out to demolish the Biden campaign — a 'juggernaut campaign (Death Star)'. It was a weird comparison considering the Death Star goes down for the count in two Star Wars movies. But then again, Parscale is also the guy who stated that millions were pining to show up at Trump’s ill-fated rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Since then, Trump canceled another rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, claiming that bad weather had forced his hand. Not much is going well for Trump, who seems about as stable as Emperor Palpatine these days.

President Donald Trump has ruffled yet more feathers in the past two weeks by serving up his opinions on the Justice Department and the Supreme Court. The president’s critics say his actions are an assault on democratic institutions and a tipping of the scales of justice. His allies argue that the president has every right to express his discontent with elements of the judicial system after the farce of the last three years.  Trump kicked off his feud with the DoJ by weighing on federal prosecutors’ recommended seven-to-nine-year sentence for political consultant Roger Stone, who was convicted of lying to Congress and witness tampering.

Roger Stone was well-turned out for his sentencing in a Washington courthouse, sporting a blue overcoat with a dark velvet collar and a black Homburg that was first popularized by the British prime minister Anthony Eden. Two rows of supporters showed up in the courtroom to cheer him on. My guess is that he was delighted by the 40-month sentence and $20,000 fine handed down by Judge Amy Berman Jackson. Now Stone gets to emulate his heroes in the Nixon administration such as G. Gordon Liddy, who served time in the hoosegow and were able to demonstrate their loyalty to the boss. Going to jail would be one of the best things ever to happen to Stone. It would be the capstone to his self-mythologization as an adversary of the liberal elite.

‘Roger Stone is the worst person to ever walk the face of the Earth,’a middle-aged man in a suit said to no one in particular in the green room at WJLA, a local ABC station, in Washington, DC. I, for one, could think of more than a few people who are probably worse than Stone, but opted to keep my mouth shut to avoid ramping up tensions before the show even started. It turns out my efforts were for naught, because I ended up on a panel with a deranged woman who was aghast at the notion that anyone could believe nine years is a terribly long sentence for someone convicted of a non-violent crime. Stone was found guilty in November 2019 on charges of lying to Congress, witness tampering, and obstruction of a House investigation.

The Rose Garden became a makeshift petting zoo this week as POTUS played host to several animals before heading to the Winter White House for the Thanksgiving holiday. Shockingly, I am not referring to Rudy Giuliani and his comms team, which is headed up by a 20-year-old with less work experience than a McDonald’s fry cook.Instead, the press shop wranglers had to use their skills on Conan, the special forces dog from the al-Baghdadi raid, and Butter (or was it Bread?) the turkey. Realistically, it was not that different from keeping Playboy’s Brian Karem from crossing the rope line, except for when the turkey briefly escaped from his handler in upper press. Hopefully no one tells Janet why there are feathers on her desk.

A grave matter — the future of American fashion — rests in the hands of President Trump. The foremost promoter of the drape cut, or soft shoulder suit, pioneered by Savile Row tailor Anderson & Sheppard, is Roger Stone, who was found guilty Friday of obstructing Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and lying to Congress. If Stone heads to the hoosegow because of his Wikileaks shenanigans, then he won’t be able to wear his flamboyant A & S suits and cutaway collars, let alone maintain his fashion blog. It will be prison stripes, not pinstripes, for him as he prepares to join his former business partner Paul Manafort behind bars. So will Trump heed the pleas of Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones and pardon Stone, his chum since the 1980s?

The day after Special Counsel Robert Mueller arrested and charged me, the Nixon Foundation falsely claimed that I had no relationship with the former president. The Nixon Foundation’s statement is ludicrous. The Foundation is run by people who never actually met Richard Nixon. In 1972, I was a junior member of Nixon’s re-election campaign staff. I have pled not guilty to Mueller’s charges, and am respecting a gag order issued by the judge. But on the question of my warm and extensive relationship with President Nixon, the record must be corrected. In 1972, as the youngest staff member on the Committee to Re-elect the President, I shook the great man’s hand only once, when he toured the re-election headquarters.