Stone stories

Remember "Katie Johnson," the woman who filed a lawsuit in which she claimed that she was raped by Donald Trump when she was 13? The woman whose very existence I strongly doubted? Well, before this post is over, I will show you an actual picture of Katie Johnson.

But before we get to that, let's talk about Roger Stone, the man who is going to put Donald Trump in the White House, by hook or by crook. Mostly crook.

Debategate! Those links over on the left side of this page don't tell the entire Stone story. Earlier today, I was going through some of the more recent posts on that site, and stumbled across a transcript of an early-'90s conference devoted to the October Surprise. Boy, that takes me back.

One of the participants was Christopher Hitchens. Ewww! Back then, he was still on the left, but he was still...ewww. He blathered on about Debategate, pretending to know everything without divulging much of anything salient.

Remember Debategate? That takes me back too.

Briefly: In 1980, a Republican mole within Jimmy Carter's camp stole the briefing books he used to prep for his debate with Reagan, who was able to anticipate every Carter answer.

In 1983, some details of Debategate came out in the press, leading to a massive controversy -- now forgotten by pretty much everyone.

Hey. Wait a minute. Planting a mole in the Democratic campaign...

Hmmm. Sure seems like a Stone move, eh wot? I mean, isn't that precisely what he did in 1972?

Time to do some further research.

This remarkable 2009 piece by Craig Shirley names the man who almost certainly stole the briefing book: Paul Corbin, sometimes characterized -- falsely, I believe -- as a political hit man for the Kennedy family. Corbin had been a former communist and labor organizer who became an aide to none other than Joe McCarthy.

(You may recall that Stone's mentor was Roy Cohn, McCarthy's partner.)

Corbin somehow ingratiated himself with the Kennedys, who apparently considered him an asset -- though the trust was obviously unwarranted, given Corbin's Janus-faced nature. When Ted Kennedy gave his concession speech at the Democratic National Convention in 1980, Corbin left the floor.

His friend Bill Schulz of Reader’s Digest called after him, asking what his plans were now that Kennedy was out of the race.

Corbin yelled back, “I’m going to go work for Reagan!”

Of course, a genuine Kennedy liberal would never have worked for Reagan. Moreover, a genuine Kennedy liberal would not have any friends at the highly-conservative Reader's Digest, a magazine which was pretty much an asset of the CIA -- and which had just published a book called Legend, filled with Angletonian lies about the JFK assassination.

The events of that election had lots of moving parts; obviously, we can't go into all of the details here. Someone should write a book about the many schemes to screw Carter: The hostages, the October Surprise, the Atlanta Child Murders, the Kennedy challenge, the Anderson challenge, the endless media smears...

Right now, our focus is on Corbin. In what follows, "Pat Lucey" refers to a former governor of Wisconsin who worked on Ted Kennedy's campaign. Ah, but was he really a Kennedy fan -- or was he another Corbin-esque fake, secretly in thrall to the GOP?

According to David Keene, a senior adviser to George H.W. Bush who frequently played poker with Corbin, and Adam Walinsky, an old RFK hand who was friends with Corbin, it was Corbin’s idea to persuade Pat Lucey to go on the ticket with independent candidate John Anderson. The thought was to bleed more liberal votes away from Carter.

In other words, Corbin and Lucey were really working for Reagan. Anyone who tries to portray them as pro-Kennedy is bullshitting you.

How does Stone fit into this narrative? Come on, people. Read between the lines. He's there.

For one thing, we've already demonstrated -- in previous posts -- that Roger Stone had a huge hand in making the John Anderson third party run happen. Putting Lucey on the ticket helped make sure that many pro-Kennedy voters went for Anderson.

(I recall those days. All good progs loved John Anderson. If anyone had told those "liberals" that Anderson was really working for a Republican hit man like Stone, everyone would have scoffed and guffawed. Just as people scoff and guffaw at me now when I say that Bernie Sanders is pulling a John Anderson. From 1980 to 2016, the story is the same: Whenever Stone holds out a hoop, the progressive purists jump right through it. And they never, ever learn.)

But there's more. That reference to a "poker party" is very, very telling.

From Roger Stone's book Nixon's Secrets (page 128):

"I would later become friendly with Bobby's chief "dirty trickster" Paul Corbin. Corbin was a hard-bitten former Communist and ex-union organizer. Although personally dedicated to Bob Kennedy..."

Yeah, right.

"...Corbin was a man without scruples while at the same time enormously resourceful. "We managed to get a million piece of anti-literature mailed to Catholic homes in Wisconsin," Corbin would tell me when I joined him for a friendly game of poker at the home of a mutual friend."

Stone's calumnies against the Kennedys are of a piece with his book of lies about the JFK assassination. Consider the source: Stone is a guy who had a picture of Nixon tattooed on his back (strategically placed, no doubt, to give Stone's more assertive paramours something more erotic than Stone to look at).

What's important here is the "poker party" at the home of a mutual friend. Remember that earlier quote...?

"According to David Keene, a senior adviser to George H.W. Bush who frequently played poker with Corbin..."

So we can establish that Roger Stone knew Paul Corbin. We can establish that Corbin was seeking to screw over Jimmy Carter on behalf of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. And we know that Corbin privately told people that he stole the briefing books.

"But" (I hear some of you carping) "you haven't conclusively established that Stone asked Corbin to steal those briefing books."

Okay. Have it your way. Go right on thinking that. The rest of us understand that it's pretty easy to figure out the image on a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle, even if you have only 400 pieces.

Katie Johnson. Many of you will recall this post about a strange lawsuit in which one Katie Johnson, filing in pro per, sued Donald Trump on the grounds that he raped her when she was 13. The big problem: We have no proof that Johnson exists.

In the previous post, I argued that the lawsuit was a fake-out, deigned to mislead liberals and send them down a false trail.

The lawsuit was tossed out. However, Jose Lambiet -- a Miami gossip columnist who has given plenty of coverage to Roger Stone in the past -- has provided some follow-up.

Katie Johnson, the woman who claimed in a lawsuit against presidential hopeful Donald Trump and pervy Palm Beacher Jeffrey Epstein last week that she was sexually abused by the Republican Party front-runner, does exist.

As a matter of fact she’s so real, Gossip Extra has learned, that she’s been shopping for an attorney to re-file, possibly in New York City, the case that was dismissed yesterday in California.

Someone who identified himself as an adviser to the woman and proved to Gossip Extra he is in contact with her says Johnson hasn’t been able to find a lawyer willing to take her case and go against the traditionally litigious Trump.

I wrote to Lambiet. For some odd reason, he has not replied. You may be interested in reading my letter to him...

I've written about the "Katie Johnson" lawsuit on my blog Cannonfire. Frankly, I believe that she is fictional, and that this whole thing reeks of one of Roger Stone's set-ups.

Now we learn that Katie (who supposedly lives in Los Angeles) has an "adviser" in your neck of the woods. How likely is THAT?

And this adviser's first thought is to talk to a Florida gossip columnist -- as though that were the best way to get the word out.

Next time you hear from this "adviser," please say "Hi" to Roger for me.

I'm pretty sure that he's the one who has been leaving all of those insane messages on my blog -- the comments that call me "cocksucker" and tell me to read Stone's twitter feed.

If you have not talked to Katie, how on earth can you possibly be sure that she exists?

By the way: You DO know that "Katie Johnson" is the name of the attractive lady who used to be Obama's personal secretary, and that this lady just happens to be the exact same age as the "Katie Johnson" in the court document?

Your pal Roger can be such a wit.

Best,

Joseph Cannon

And here, as promised, is Katie Johnson. She's the one on the right. In magenta.

Oh god. You're not going to do it, are you, dear reader? Don't say it. Don't say it. Stephen, I'm looking at you. Please don't say it. I'd like to believe that my readers are not totally fucking stupid. I'd like to believe that my readers don't need every painfully obvious thing spelled out for them...

"Cannon, are you claiming that Obama's secretary was raped by Trump?"

(Cannon gets up. Walks to wall. Bashes head against wall.)

I begged you not to say that!