How One Sleazebag Brought Down Another

Politics is a dirty business and there may not be a sleazier operative than Roger Stone.

An interesting look at how he helped grease the skids for Eliot Spitzer's downfall.

Four months before a hooker scandal brought down Eliot Spitzer, controversial Republican operative Roger Stone tipped the FBI to the governor's penchant for prostitutes.

The information Stone provided was very detailed - right down to the calf-length black socks Spitzer allegedly wore while bedding his paid paramours.

In a letter sent to the FBI on Nov. 19, Stone alleged that Spitzer "used the service of high-priced call girls" while in Florida.

Stone, a former henchman for President Richard Nixon who divides his time between his Central Park West apartment and Miami Beach, said in the letter that he had gathered the information on Spitzer from "a social contact in an adult-themed club."

Spitzer resigned last Monday, a week after his liaisons with $1,000-an-hour hooker Ashley Dupre were revealed.

Yesterday, Stone refused to comment on the letter, but told The Post: "What kind of guy does it with his socks on?"

Stone has a history with Spitzer, as well as Spitzer's father.

Indeed, his political affiliations run the gamut, from Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan to Al Sharpton.

Al Sharpton? Yes.

He oversaw Ronald Reagan’s campaign operations in New York but was on the outs in some Republican circles after backing the upstate billionaire Tom Golisano’s third-party bid against Gov. George E. Pataki in 2002. A dossier about Mr. Stone’s past exploits prepared by a former opponent and still circulating among New York Republicans runs to 74 pages.

During the Florida recount in 2000, George W. Bush’s campaign enlisted Mr. Stone and his wife, Nydia, who is of Cuban ancestry, to rally support among Cuban exiles in Miami, according to Jeffrey Toobin’s “Too Close to Call,” a book about the recount battle. Mr. Stone was also instrumental in organizing the so-called Brooks Brothers Riot, the book said, when hundreds of Republican activists stormed a county election office in Miami and demanded that workers there cease recounting presidential ballots.

Mr. Stone had an unlikely political relationship with the Rev. Al Sharpton during his 2004 run for the presidency, and some of Mr. Sharpton’s aides said Mr. Stone played a central role in the campaign. But Mr. Stone says his role has been greatly overstated.