Roger Stone's Twitter account suspended for threatening journalists

Twitter has suspended the account of US President Donald Trump's former adviser Roger Stone after he sent a volley of tweets threatening several journalists at the CNN news channel.

Roger Stone. Pic/AFP

Stone, a Republican political operative and long-time friend of Trump, went on a vicious, profane tirade after CNN on Friday night reported that a federal grand jury in Washington DC had filed initial charges in the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election.

Stone attacked several CNN anchors and contributors by name including Jake Tapper, Bill Kristol, Carl Bernstein, Don Lemon and Ana Navarro as well as New York Times columnist Charles Blow. He called Lemon an "ignorant lying c''''''''r", and a "dull witted arrogant partyboi", adding: "You fake news you dumb piece of s''t."

In addition to throwing insults, he insisted that Lemon should be "confronted, humiliated, mocked and punished" while Tapper should be "very severely punished". His account was suspended permanently on Saturday as his tweets violate Twitter's anti-abuse rules.