Twitter bans Trump's ex-adviser Roger Stone for abusing journalists

Roger Stone attacked several CNN anchors and contributors

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.

Stone, a Republican political operative and longtime 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", the recode.net reported late on Saturday.

His account was suspended permanently on Saturday as his tweets violate Twitter's anti-abuse rules, which state that users cannot incite or engage in the targeted abuse or harassment of others.

This is not the first time Stone's account has been banned.

His account was suspended in March and again in April after he wrote threatening tweets to a spokeswoman of Media Matters, a progressive media watchdog group.