A Democrat operative working for a super PAC funded by left-wing billionaire George Soros was arrested Tuesday night in Nevada after he allegedly assaulted the female campaign manager for Republican gubernatorial candidate Adam Laxalt.
Kristin Davison told police that Mike Stark yanked her arm and twisted it behind her back, leaving her “terrified and traumatized” and with visible bruising on her neck and arms.
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Dems War on Women continueshttps://t.co/cfds3vB6wA
— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) October 17, 2018
This attack comes amid news that two Republican candidates in Minnesota were assaulted by violent leftists, a threatening letter claiming to be laced with ricin was sent to Senator Susan Collins’ home in Bangor, Maine, and multiple GOP offices were vandalized.
Stark, who was tracking Laxalt for David Brock’s American Bridge 21st Century super PAC, has a long history of abusive behavior toward Republicans.
In her statement to the police, Davison said Stark barged into a room where Laxalt, Nevada’s attorney general, was meeting with her and two other staffers after a campaign event in East Las Vegas Tuesday evening. She said Stark cornered her before he grabbed her.
“I could not move,” Davison said in her statement. “Stark grabbed my right arm, twisted it behind my back, squeezed it very hard, and every time I tried to pull away he pulled me closer and gripped my arm tighter.”
“I kept screaming help me, stop hurting me, you are hurting me,” she wrote. “Stark would not stop and grabbed my arm tighter and pulled me closer to him and the door. I was terrified and at that point saw multiple colleagues try to pull him off me, but Stark held tighter.”
“Politics is a little bit aggressive these days, but this is just insane. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Davison, 31, told Fox News on Wednesday.
“We’re used to trackers, but this guy was very physical—pushing me, pushing into members of my staff, screaming,” Davison explained. “This man was physically almost body-checking me. I was getting nervous for my safety, so we left and went into an open room.”
“He grabbed my right arm, my leg was lodged between the door and the wall. He twisted my arm, and contorted it behind my back,” she explained. “I was scared. Every time I tried pulling away, he would grab tighter, and pull me closer into him.”
Davison said Stark pulled her head into his chest, bruising her neck, and held her there for several minutes. She said it “felt like an hour.”
“I was scared and screaming ‘stop—you’re hurting me,’” Davison continued. She said Stark told Laxalt, “Adam, there’s only one way you can make this stop.”
“That really scared me,” she added.
The Laxalt campaign said politics in Nevada has “reached a new low” in a statement to Fox News.
Laxalt’s campaign spokesperson Parker Briden said: “Assaulting the female campaign manager of the opposing campaign is disgusting and it has no place in our system. This mob behavior from the left is out of control. Encouraging violence, as many prominent Democrats like former Attorney General Eric Holder have recently done, is having real, dangerous consequences.”
According to the Laxalt campaign and local law enforcement, Wilfred Michael Stark III, 50, was arrested by the Las Vegas City Marshals on Tuesday evening and remains in custody in the Las Vegas city jail.
The city marshal’s office said in a statement to Fox News: “He was arrested by our city marshals last night about 7 p.m. after Kristin Davison contacted them saying Mr. Stark had grabbed her by the arm and pushed her. The arrest is classified as a citizen’s arrest because the incident did not happen in the presence of the marshals.” The office said the incident was “an apparent result of an altercation involving Mr. Stark entering one of the rooms … and attempting to question Attorney General Adam Laxalt.”
This is the second time Stark has been arrested this year for assaulting a Republican. Back in March, he was charged with assault following a confrontation with the female press secretary for Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke outside a congressional hearing.
Stark was also arrested on Oct. 28, 2017, for disorderly conduct at an event in Virginia while tracking then-GOP gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie for American Bridge. He was found guilty of disorderly conduct last February.
Additionally, Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) tweeted on Wednesday that Stark harassed her campaign on the 4th of July.
Mike Stark who harassed our campaign on the 4th of July was arrested last night for assaulting a female campaign manager in Nevada. This is the resistance. Below is a picture of Stark with Team Wexton (pink shirt)…story of his latest arrest: https://t.co/BDhKcwk9BA #VA10 pic.twitter.com/8FEe30bh5l
— Barbara Comstock (@BarbaraComstock) October 17, 2018
Democratic officials in Nevada denied any connection to Stark.
American Bridge 21st Century announced Wednesday night that it had fired the tracker.
Soros-backed group fires operative after arrest over alleged battery against GOP campaign manager https://t.co/GDbAm1tyNG
— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 18, 2018
The super PAC said in a statement that Mike Stark had been relieved of his duties “effective immediately.”
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