Investigators in special counsel Robert Mueller’s office have notified an attorney for Kristin Davis, who gained notoriety in the 2000s for running a high-end prostitution ring, that they intend to question her as part of their probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Davis said Friday.
Davis, who is known as the “Manhattan Madam,” said she expects to be asked about her close friend, Roger Stone, a political operative and longtime confidant of President Donald Trump. It comes one week after prosecutors unveiled an indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers who allegedly conspired to hack Democrats during the campaign.
Stone was not named in the indictment, but messages cited by prosecutors match communications that he says he had with the Twitter persona Guccifer 2.0, who had claimed online to be a Romanian hacker. Prosecutors say Guccifer was actually a Twitter account operated by Russian intelligent officers.
In 2016, WikiLeaks released emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta, a top adviser to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Prosecutors have said Guccifer routed the stolen documents to the group. Stone has described his contact with Guccifer as benign, saying he was merely congratulating the Twitter persona on being reinstated after being banned from the social media platform.
“Roger’s one of my best friends,” Davis said in a telephone interview Friday. “I have nothing bad to say about him.” She called the Mueller probe a “witch hunt,” and said “in terms of Russian collusion I know nothing.”
The contact by Mueller’s team was first reported by TMZ. Davis’s attorney, Daniel Hochheiser, could not be reached for comment. Stone declined to comment. Mueller’s office also did not respond to a request for comment.
Davis is the latest of multiple current and former Stone associates to be contacted by Mueller’s team. His longtime associates Sam Nunberg and Michael Caputo – both of whom held posts in Trump’s 2016 campaign – have said they were questioned about Stone. Jason Sullivan, who briefly worked as Stone’s social media coordinator, appeared at D.C. federal court after receiving a subpoena. And Stone’s driver, John Kakanis, has also been subpoenaed.
“They seem to be going back with him and picking up people who worked for Roger, and some people who are disgruntled,” Davis said.
Another former Stone aide, Andrew Miller, is seeking to quash a subpoena he received from Mueller’s team. Davis said she was unsure whether she would attempt to do the same.
Davis, a former hedge fund executive, was known for running a high-end prostitution ring in New York City. She has served time in prison on prostitution charges and a drug charge.
In 2010, Stone was a strategist for Davis’s campaign for New York governor, a race in which she garnered more than 20,000 votes – less than 1 percent of the total ballots cast. In the years since she has become one of Stone’s closest confidants, tending to his travel and speaking schedule.
As for Stone, she said: “I feel like he’s very misunderstood.”
