In a new set of unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud, Roger Stone, a longtime friend and a former adviser to President Donald Trump on Thursday said that North Korea interfered in the US presidential elections.
Appearing on far-right radio programme The Alex Jones Show, Mr Stones claimed that there was “incontrovertible evidence” that the votes were brought into the US through Maine. He didn’t present any himself.
"I just learned of absolute incontrovertible evidence of North Korean boats delivering ballots through a harbour in Maine, the state of Maine," he said.
"If this checks out if law enforcement looked into that and it turned out to be true, it would be proof of foreign involvement in the election," said Mr Stone who was granted clemency by President Trump in July this year, after being found guilty of lying to Congress and intimidating witnesses during an investigation into election interference.
The longtime Republican operative was convicted in November last year on seven counts for lying to lawmakers about communicating with WikiLeaks, tampered with witnesses and obstructed a House intelligence committee investigation into the president's 2016 campaign.
The office of Maine’s Secretary of State hit out at Mr Stone for using his position as a prominent Trump associate to further such unfounded claims.
"Discussing a rumour such as this only legitimises it," said Maine Secretary of State spokesperson Kristen Schulze Muszynski, in a statement to Newsweek. “We have no evidence of any interference in our election, and we have completed our certification of the official results. We take voter fraud and interference allegations seriously and look into any substantiated claims. At this point, this vague rumour has absolutely no validity.”
While Mr Stone’s allegations are among the more outlandish made about the US election, they are not made in isolation. The president and his legal team have repeatedly claimed the election was rigged and there was widespread fraud, though they have not presented any evidence of this in court and their lawsuits to stall the certification of the 3 November election have largely been rejected.
Federal officials from Mr Trump’s own administration have backed the legitimacy of the vote, which saw president-elect Joe Biden take around 51.3 per cent vote of the popular vote to Mr Trump’s just under 47 per cent.
While some litigation on behalf of the Trump campaign team is still yet to be decided, time is running out. States have until 8 December to certify their results before the Electoral College convenes on 14 December to formally declare the next president.
