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Here’s Why Trump’s Ideal lawyer, Roy Cohn, Was Such a Vile Figure in US Politics — and Why His Name Lives in Infamy

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President Donald Trump has not been shy about expressing his admiration for his attorney and political fixer Roy Cohn, who was 59 when he died of AIDS-related causes in 1986 and went down in history as one of the vilest 20th Century figures in U.S. politics. Trump considers Cohn a mentor and an inspiration, and he may have found his 2019 version of Cohn in Attorney General William Barr: Cohn was a top fixer in business and right-wing politics in his day, and Barr served as a fixer for Trump when he offered a vigorous defense of the president during a morning press conference on Thursday (the day Barr officially released a redacted version of the final report for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation).

Cohn, born in New York City in 1927, achieved infamy as Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel during the Red Scare in the early 1950s. McCarthy, a Wisconsin Republican, conducted a ruthless anti-communist witch hunt—and he did so with Cohn’s help and guidance. Enthusiastically encouraged by Cohn, McCarthy believed in a guilty-until-proven-innocent approach when it came to alleged communist connections in the government.

Cohn was also a key figure in the Lavender Scare, an anti-gay campaign of the 1950s. Gays, according to Cohn, posed a security threat because they were susceptible to blackmail—and Cohn, along with McCarthy and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, was responsible for mass firings of gays from the U.S. government during the 1950s. Although Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower would be way too moderate for the Republican Party of 2019, he caved into the anti-gay hysteria and, in 1953, signed into law Executive Order 10450—which barred gays from working in the federal government.

Despite his anti-gay activities, Cohn was widely believed to be a closeted gay man. Vanity Fair’s Marie Brenner, in an in-depth 2017 piece on Cohn, noted that “in lavender Washington, Cohn was known as both a closeted homosexual and homophobic.”

In a March 1988 Life Magazine article, Nicholas von Hoffman quoted Robert Blecker (who had ghost-written one of Cohn’s books) as saying that when he was dying of AIDS-related causes, Cohn claimed to have liver cancer—not AIDS. Von Hoffman’s article quotes Blecker as saying he was among the few people with whom Cohn had been “open about being gay.”

After McCarthy faced a major backlash during the 1950s, Cohn’s legal and political career should have ended. But in the early 1970s, Cohn found a protégé: a young real estate developer from Queens named Donald J. Trump. Cohn represented Trump when, in 1973, the U.S. Justice Department accused him of violating the Fair Housing Act of 1968 in 39 of his buildings by showing racial bias—and the attorney filed a $100 million countersuit against the federal government, calling the accusations against Trump “irresponsible and baseless.”

Long-time Trump ally Roger Stone has articulated how influential Cohn was in Trump’s life. Stone, in a 2018 interview, explained, “You don’t fight on the other guy’s ground. You define what the debate is going to be about. I think Donald learned that from Roy. I learned that from Roy.”

Cohn’s life is the subject of director Matt Tyrnauer’s documentary, “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” Trump has used the title’s exact words: in 2017, after Mueller took over the Russia investigation, a frustrated Trump remarked, “Where’s my Roy Cohn?”

In a piece for The Nation published on Thursday, journalist Joan Walsh asserts that previously, she thought that perhaps Trump had found his modern-day Roy Cohn in former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (one of Trump’s most ardent defenders). But Walsh now says she was “wrong” and that Barr—not Giuliani—has become Trump’s 2019 Roy Cohn, writing that Barr “sat on” Mueller’s “400-page report for three weeks, while quickly releasing a four-page letter exonerating Trump on charges of colluding with Russia and obstructing justice.”

Cohn is mentioned more than once in Mueller’s final report for the Russia investigation. White House Counsel Don McGahn reportedly faced Trump’s wrath when Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recused himself from the investigation. Mueller’s report says that Trump “brought up Roy Cohn, stating that he wished Cohn was his attorney. McGahn interpreted this comment as directed at him, suggesting that Cohn would fight for the president, whereas McGahn would not.”

And former White House Press Secretary Reince Priebus “recalled that when the president talked about Cohn, he said Cohn would win cases for him that had no chance, and that Cohn had done incredible things for him.”

In one of the most amusing parts of Mueller’s report, the special counsel describes a meeting in which Trump wanted to know why McGahn was taking notes, saying, “I never had a lawyer who took notes.”

McGahn, according to Mueller’s report, said “he keeps notes because he is a ‘real lawyer.’” He added that “notes create a record and are not a bad thing.”

And Trump told McGahn, “I’ve had a lot of great lawyers, like Roy Cohn. He did not take notes.”

Trump and Cohn enjoyed so close a relationship that in 1980, Trump commented that Cohn had “been vicious to others in his protection of me.” To be sure, the word “vicious” describes Cohn.

Now 72, Trump still considers Cohn his mentor—and that is nothing to be proud of.

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Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’

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April 25, 2024

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Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court hearing Donald Trump’s claim of absolute immunity early on appeared at best skeptical, were able to get his attorney to admit personal criminal acts can be prosecuted, appeared to skewer his argument a president must be impeached and convicted before he can be criminally prosecuted, and peppered him with questions exposing what some experts see is the apparent weakness of his case.

Legal experts appeared to believe, based on the Justices’ questions and statements, Trump will lose his claim of absolute presidential immunity, and may remand the case back to the lower court that already ruled against him, but these observations came during Justices’ questioning of Trump attorney John Sauer, and before they questioned the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s Michael Dreeben.

“I can say with reasonable confidence that if you’re arguing a case in the Supreme Court of the United States and Justices Alito and Sotomayor are tag-teaming you, you are going to lose,” noted attorney George Conway, who has argued a case before the nation’s highest court and obtained a unanimous decision.

But some are also warning that the justices will delay so Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump will not take place before the November election.

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

“This argument still has a ways to go,” observed UCLA professor of law Rick Hasen, one of the top election law scholars in the county. “But it is easy to see the Court (1) siding against Trump on the merits but (2) in a way that requires further proceedings that easily push this case past the election (to a point where Trump could end this prosecution if elected).”

The Economist’s Supreme Court reporter Steven Mazie appeared to agree: “So, big picture: the (already slim) chances of Jack Smith actually getting his 2020 election-subversion case in front of a jury before the 2024 election are dwindling before our eyes.”

One of the most stunning lines of questioning came from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who said, “If someone with those kinds of powers, the most powerful person in the world with the greatest amount of authority, could go into Office knowing that there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes. I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is, from turning the Oval Office into, you know, the seat of criminal activity in this country.”

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She also warned, “If the potential for criminal liability is taken off the table, wouldn’t there be a significant risk that future presidents would be emboldened to commit crimes with abandon while they’re in office? It’s right now the fact that we’re having this debate because, OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] has said that presidents might be prosecuted. Presidents, from the beginning of time have understood that that’s a possibility. That might be what has kept this office from turning into the kind of crime center that I’m envisioning, but once we say, ‘no criminal liability, Mr. President, you can do whatever you want,’ I’m worried that we would have a worse problem than the problem of the president feeling constrained to follow the law while he’s in office.”

“Why is it as a matter of theory,” Justice Jackson said, “and I’m hoping you can sort of zoom way out here, that the president would not be required to follow the law when he is performing his official acts?”

“So,” she added later, “I guess I don’t understand why Congress in every criminal statute would have to say and the President is included. I thought that was the sort of background understanding that if they’re enacting a generally applicable criminal statute, it applies to the President just like everyone else.”

Another critical moment came when Justice Elena Kagan asked, “If a president sells nuclear secrets to a foreign adversary, is that immune?”

Professor of law Jennifer Taub observed, “This is truly a remarkable moment. A former U.S. president is at his criminal trial in New York, while at the same time the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing his lawyer’s argument that he should be immune from prosecution in an entirely different federal criminal case.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

 

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‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

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April 25, 2024

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The county clerk for Ingham County, Michigan blasted Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump after the ex-president’s daughter-in-law bragged the RNC will have people to “physically handle” voters’ ballots in polling locations across the country this November.

“We now have the ability at the RNC not just to have poll watchers, people standing in polling locations, but people who can physically handle the ballots,” Trump told Newsmax host Eric Bolling this week, as NCRM reported.

“Will these people, will they be allowed to physically handle the ballots as well, Lara?” Bolling asked.

“Yup,” Trump replied.

Marc Elias, the top Democratic elections attorney who won 63 of the 64 lawsuits filed by the Donald Trump campaign in the 2020 election cycle (the one he did not win was later overturned), corrected Lara Trump.

READ MORE: ‘I Hope You Find Happiness’: Moskowitz Trolls Comer Over Impeachment Fail

“Poll observers are NEVER permitted to touch ballots. She is suggesting the RNC will infiltrate election offices,” Elias warned on Wednesday.

Barb Byrum, a former Michigan Democratic state representative with a law degree and a local hardware store, is the Ingham County Clerk, and thus the chief elections official for her county. She slammed Lara Trump and warned her the RNC had better not try to touch any ballots in her jurisdiction.

“I watched your video, and it’s riveting stuff. But if you think you’ll be touching ballots in my state, you’ve got another thing coming,” Byrum told Trump in response to the Newsmax interview.

“First and foremost, precinct workers, clerks, and voters are the only people authorized to touch ballots. For example, I am the County Clerk, and I interact with exactly one voted ballot: My own,” Byrum wrote, launching a lengthy series of social media posts educating Trump.

“Election inspectors are hired by local clerks in Michigan and we hire Democrats and Republicans to work in our polling places. We’re required by law to do so,” she continued. “In large cities and townships, the local clerks train those workers. In smaller cities and townships, that responsibility falls to County Clerks, like me.”

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

She explained, “precinct workers swear an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Michigan.”

“Among the provisions in the Michigan Constitution is the right to a secret ballot for our voters,” she added.

Byrum also educated Trump on her inaccurate representation of the consent decree, which was lifted by a court, not a judge’s death, as Lara Trump had claimed.

“It’s important for folks to understand what you’re talking about: The end of a consent decree that was keeping the RNC from intimidating and suppressing voters (especially in minority-majority areas).”

“With that now gone, you’re hoping for the RNC to step up their game and get people that you train to do god-knows what into the polling places.”

Byrum also warned Trump: “If election inspectors are found to be disrupting the process of an orderly election OR going outside their duties, local clerks are within their rights to dismiss them immediately.”

“So if you intend to train these 100,000 workers to do anything but their sacred constitutional obligation, they’ll find themselves on the curb faster than you can say ‘election interference.'”

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

 

 

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Gag Order Breach? Trump Targeted Cohen in Taped Interview Hours Before Contempt Hearing

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April 24, 2024

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Hours before his attorneys would mount a defense on Tuesday claiming he had not violated his gag order Donald Trump might have done just that in a 12-minute taped interview that morning, which did not air until later that day. It will be up to Judge Juan Merchan to make that decision, if prosecutors add it to their contempt request.

Prosecutors in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office told Judge Juan Merchan that the ex-president violated the gag order ten times, via posts on his Truth Social platform, and are asking he be held in contempt. While the judge has yet to rule, he did not appear moved by their arguments. At one point, Judge Merchan told Trump’s lead lawyer Todd Blanche he was “losing all credibility” with the court.

And while Judge Merchan directed defense attorneys to provide a detailed timeline surrounding Trump’s Truth Social posts to prove he had not violated the gag order, Trump in an interview with a local television station appeared to have done so.

READ MORE: ‘They Will Have Thugs?’: Lara Trump’s Claim RNC Will ‘Physically Handle the Ballots’ Stuns

The gag order bars Trump from “commenting or causing others to comment on potential witnesses in the case, prospective jurors, court staff, lawyers in the district attorney’s office and the relatives of any counsel or court staffer, as CBS News reported.

“The threat is very real,” Judge Merchan wrote when he expanded the gag order. “Admonitions are not enough, nor is reliance on self-restraint. The average observer, must now, after hearing Defendant’s recent attacks, draw the conclusion that if they become involved in these proceedings, even tangentially, they should worry not only for themselves, but for their loved ones as well. Such concerns will undoubtedly interfere with the fair administration of justice and constitutes a direct attack on the Rule of Law itself.”

Tuesday morning, Trump told ABC Philadelphia’s Action News reporter Walter Perez, “Michael Cohen is a convicted liar. He’s got no credibility whatsoever.”

He repeated that Cohen is a “convicted liar,” and insisted he “was a lawyer for many people, not just me.”

READ MORE: ‘Old and Tired and Mad’: Trump’s Demeanor in Court Detailed by Rachel Maddow

Since Cohen is a witness in Trump’s New York criminal case, Judge Merchan might decide Trump’s remarks during that interview violated the gag order, if prosecutors bring the video to his attention.

Enter attorney George Conway, who has been attending Trump’s New York trial.

Conway reposted a clip of the video, tagged Manhattan District Attorney Bragg, writing: “cc: @ManhattanDA, for your proposed order to show cause why the defendant in 𝘗𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘷. 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘮𝘱 should not spend some quiet time in lockup.”

Trump has been criminally indicted in four separate cases and is facing a total of 88 felony charges, including 34 in this New York criminal trial for alleged falsification of business records to hide payments of “hush money” to an adult film actress and one other woman, in an alleged effort to suppress their stories and protect his 2016 presidential campaign, which experts say is election interference.

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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