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Robert Mueller wants to question the “Manhattan Madam”

Kristin Davis, a former escort service operator and gubernatorial candidate, is an associate of Roger Stone.

Kristin Davis, the “Manhattan Madam,” in 2013.
AP Photo/Louis Lanzano
Jen Kirby is a senior foreign and national security reporter at Vox, where she covers global instability.

Special counsel Robert Mueller reportedly wants to question Kristin Davis, the “Manhattan Madam” who ran a high-end prostitution ring in New York City. Davis is also a close associate of political trickster and Trump associate Roger Stone — likely the reason Mueller would like to question her in the ongoing Russia probe.

Davis confirmed to the Washington Post that the Mueller team had reached out to her attorney Daniel Hochheiser about questioning her. But she hasn’t yet been formally subpoenaed, Hochheiser told CNN.

Mueller has been circling Stone, digging into his interactions with the hacker known as Guccifer 2.0, whom the special counsel identified as a member of Russian intelligence in last Friday’s indictment of 12 Russian spies. Stone was not named in the indictment or charged with anything, but he conceded he was the “US person” mentioned in the indictment. (Beyond his chats with Guccifer 2.0, Stone also communicated with WikiLeaks.)

Mueller has also sought to question a number of Stone’s associates, Davis being the latest to fall into the special counsel’s crosshairs.

“Roger’s one of my best friends,” Davis told the Washington Post. “I have nothing bad to say about him.” She added that “in terms of Russian collusion I know nothing.”

Davis was a minor character in the prostitution scandal that brought down then-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer in 2008. (Davis said Spitzer was one of her clients.) She ran for governor of New York in 2010 on the Anti-Prohibition Party ticket (not a joke) and, of course, did not win. But Stone advised her campaign, and another associate of Stone’s — Andrew Miller — served as her campaign manager. Miller has already been subpoenaed by Mueller, though he’s fighting it.

According to the Washington Post, Davis is one of Stone’s closest confidants, and CNN reports that Stone is godfather to Davis’s son.

Stone, at least, definitely thinks Mueller’s interest is probably about him. “I cannot imagine anything other than that question,” Stone told CNN on Friday. “She has been [an] associate of mine for over 10 years. She is someone I have great affection for.”