Shawn McCreesh reported on Monday in a New York Magazine article about a “safe space” café for Republicans on Manhattan’s Upper West Side that longtime Donald Trump ally Roger Stone says he doesn’t feel safe walking down the street in this part of the city because he fears being attacked by liberals.
“A Nixon Republican and Roy Cohn disciple — Nixon lived on Fifth Avenue, and Cohn on East 68th — Stone says he loves New York, but that he hasn’t returned to the city since the FBI raided him in 2019,” wrote McCreesh. “When he is here, he claims the Upper West Side is no longer safe for him. ‘People who don’t share my political point of view might verbally and sometimes physically attack me,’ he says.”
Stone did not give an example of a time when he was assaulted physically. He also called Corey Lewandowski, a longtime Trump friend who was fired as the head of a prominent Trump super PAC after sexual misconduct allegations from a GOP donor, a “congenital liar, and a scumbag.”
Stone was previously convicted of obstruction of justice and witness tampering for his role in the Trump-Russia scandal. On his way out the door, Trump shortened his sentence and eventually granted him a full pardon.
The pardon, however, hasn’t put a stop to Stone’s legal woes. The Justice Department is suing him for fraud and tax violations, and a House committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack has summoned him for information in light of photos showing him marching with the Oath Keepers the morning before the attack.
Stone, a longtime Trump supporter, has vowed to run against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis if DeSantis does not launch an audit of the state’s 2020 election.
“I heard governor Ron DeSantis say that Florida had the most honest election in our history in 2020, yet I know for a certainty there are one million phantom voters on the Florida voter rolls. These ‘voters’ simply do not exist,” Stone wrote on his Telegram channel on Sunday.
“If Gov. Ron DeSantis does not order a full audit of the Florida 2020 vote, I may be forced to seek the Libertarian Party nomination for governor in 2022. And Ron can kiss his arrogant Yalie ass goodbye #DefendFlorida,” Stone added.
Stone also said on the social media site Gab on Sunday that if DeSantis does not investigate his accusations of voting fraud, he “may be forced to seek the Libertarian Party nomination,” adding the hashtag #ByeRon.
In the 2020 election, there is no indication of massive voting fraud. And Donald Trump won Florida by around 3 percentage points against Joe Biden.
However, Trump’s triumph in the state has not deterred local Republicans from demanding audits. In September, Republicans in Lake County, near Orlando, passed motions urging every state legislator to launch an audit of the 2020 election. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has likewise promoted the erroneous assertion that Trump won Florida by about three times the number of votes.
This demand for a “forensic audit” and recount of the state’s 11.1 million ballots has left DeSantis in an untenable position, according to Politico. Last year, he argued that Florida was a model for how states should organize elections.
“People are actually looking at Florida and asking the question ‘Why can’t the states be more like Florida? Florida was able to handle 11 million ballots,’” DeSantis said during a news conference last November, adding: “The way Florida did it, I think, inspires confidence. I think that’s how elections should be run.”
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