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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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News

Trump Campaign Furious Walz Using Trump’s Own ‘Reckless, Dangerous Rhetoric’ Against Him

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16 hours ago

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October 14, 2024

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The Trump campaign lashed out at Minnesota Governor Tim Walz on Monday after the Democratic vice presidential nominee quoted the Republican presidential candidate who repeatedly over the weekend has been saying he would like to use the U.S. military against American citizens.

As NCRM reported, the Republican presidential nominee said he thinks the U.S. Armed Forces should be used against Americans who oppose him, called his critics “the enemy from within,” and declared they are more dangerous than America’s greatest foreign adversaries, including Russia, China, and North Korea.

“I always say we have the outside enemy, so you can say China, you can say Russia, you can say, Kim Jung-Un,” Trump told supporters at an Aurora, Colorado rally on Friday. But, he added: “It’s the enemy from within, all the scum that we have to deal with that hate our country. That’s a bigger enemy than China and Russia,” he said as the audience cheered.

READ MORE: MAGA Furious After Kamala Harris Agrees to Fox News Interview

Then, on Sunday, Trump told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo of his desire to use armed forces against Americans on Election Day.

“I think the bigger problem are the people from within, we have some very bad people, we have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary by the military.”

Trump War Room, the official social media account of the Trump campaign, posted video of Walz on Monday speaking with supporters.

“Donald Trump over the weekend was talking about using the U.S. Army against people who disagree with him,” Walz had said. “Just so you’re clear about that, that’s you. That’s what he’s talking about. This is not some mythical thing out there. He called it the ‘enemy within.'”

The Trump War Room social media account wrote: “Tim Walz peddles a disgusting lie that President Trump will use the U.S. Army against his political opponents: ‘That’s you, that’s what he’s talking about.’ This is reckless, dangerous rhetoric,” the campaign stated. “Tim should be ASHAMED of himself.”

READ MORE: ‘Is He OK?’: Trump’s Dark of Night Rage Posting Backfires

See the videos below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Fascist to the Core’: Trump’s Top General Slams Ex-President as ‘Most Dangerous Person’

 

 

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MAGA Furious After Kamala Harris Agrees to Fox News Interview

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17 hours ago

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October 14, 2024

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The right wing freakout is in full force after Fox News announced Vice President Kamala Harris will sit down for an interview with then network’s chief political anchor Bret Baier on Wednesday in the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania.

It will be the Democratic presidential nominee’s first official Fox News interview, after entering the race in July, less than three months ago.

“While Trump became the first major presidential nominee to back out of the traditional pre-election ’60 Minutes’ interview, Kamala Harris has agreed to sit down with Fox News for an interview this week,” noted Zeteo News’ Justin Baragona.

“Harris has upped her media appearances recently, having sat down with Stephen Colbert, 60 Minutes‘ Bill Whitaker and Howard Stern, among other personalities,” Deadline reports. “But she’s also been urged by some supporters to make an appearance on Fox News, populated by voices on the right, even though Baier is on the network’s news side. With an average of 2.3 million viewers, Special Report has ranked among the most watched cable news programs.”

READ MORE: ‘Is He OK?’: Trump’s Dark of Night Rage Posting Backfires

Trump recently did pull out of a previously agreed-to interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” and has refused to do any more debates with Harris after losing the first one on ABC News. Before that debate Trump had suggested a condition of him participating in the ABC debate would be Harris had to agree to two others, which she did. Next week she will appear in a CNN town hall, which originally was to be a debate until Trump pulled out.

“As of today, it has been **one month** since Trump’s been interviewed by a mainstream media outlet,” noted Harris campaign spokesperson Ian Sams, “as he has backed out of 60 Minutes and refuses to debate again.”

“Meanwhile Harris is willing to even go on Fox,” he added.

During the 2024 campaign Trump has done virtually no interviews with mainstream media outlets, avoiding The New York Times, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, and MSNBC. He did sit down with NBC News’s “Meet the Press” for Kristen Welker’s first interview as the show’s new moderator last year in September.

READ MORE: ‘Fascist to the Core’: Trump’s Top General Slams Ex-President as ‘Most Dangerous Person’

The Nation’s John Nichols commented that Trump is “running scared.”

Trump supporters “swarmed all over Fox’s Bret Baier today like he was a Capitol Police Officer on J6 after he posted on Twitter that he will be interviewing Kamala Harris this Wednesday,” MeidasTouch News reports. “Baier received 2,200 comments on his tweet announcing the interview in just the first hour after he posted it.”

“Most of the MAGA comments to Baier follow a consistent theme – that they lost all faith in Baier after his tough interview embarrassed Trump last year, and that they expect him to go into this interview with guns blazing to win back their favor. They also mentioned some of the previous Harris interview conspiracies – that her earrings were airpods where she was getting the answers, that she was given the questions ahead of time, that Baier and Fox called the 2020 election too early for Biden, etc.,” MeidasTouch editor-in-chief Ron Filipkowski reported.

Journalist Mike Rothschild, who has written books on right wing conspiracy theories, observed: “This is smart from the VP. She has nothing to lose by appearing on the news arm of Fox News (as opposed to the screeching infotainment arm) and if she breaks through to a fraction of their viewership, it’s worth it. It’s almost like the Harris campaign knows what it’s doing.”

The news Harris will appear on Fox News comes on the heels of one of that outlet’s former top hosts, Geraldo Rivera, denouncing Donald Trump and endorsing the Vice President’s run for President.

READ MORE: Elon Musk’s X Engaged in a ‘Pattern of Election Interference’ to Help Trump: Reports

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‘Violently Authoritarian’: Alarm Over Trump’s Threat to Use Military Against Americans

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22 hours ago

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October 14, 2024

By

Donald Trump over the weekend repeatedly said he wants to use the U.S. military against Americans who oppose him, called his critics “the enemy from within,” and declared they are more dangerous than America’s greatest foreign adversaries, including Russia, China, and North Korea.

“I always say we have the outside enemy, so you can say China, you can say Russia, you can say, Kim Jung-Un,” Trump told supporters at an Aurora, Colorado rally on Friday (video below). But, he added: “It’s the enemy from within, all the scum that we have to deal with. that hate our country. That’s a bigger enemy than China and Russia,” he said as the audience cheered.

On Sunday, Trump told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo of his desire to use armed forces against Americans on Election Day.

“I think the bigger problem are the people from within, we have some very bad people, we have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary by the military.”

READ MORE: ‘Fascist to the Core’: Trump’s Top General Slams Ex-President as ‘Most Dangerous Person’

Pointing to those remarks, constitutional law scholar Laurence Tribe says, “Just think what this means for the 2028 election if Trump & Vance are in control as of January 20, 2025.”

In both events Trump had been talking about undocumented immigrants before switching his target to American citizens.

AFP called his remarks against U.S. citizens a “sinister election-related threat.” Rolling Stone called it a “a fascist plan to deploy military forces against U.S. citizens who oppose him on election day.” HuffPost described his remarks as “echoing similar language used by Nazis,” and HuffPost legal/justice reporter Brandi Buchman warned the “level of danger that people face if he is ever allowed near office again cannot be understated.” The New Republic declared Trump went “Full Dictator.”

“Trump as President and Commander in Chief would seek to wage war on the American people,” warned historian and professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert on fascism and authoritarianism. She adds, “our armed forces could have a new authoritarian role: domestic repression. ‘Handling’ the Leader’s enemies=violence.”

Attorney and former federal and state prosecutor Eric Lisann responded, writing: “Trump has already requested military equipment and protection for him now, as a mere candidate. He will gut the military of its finest leaders, many of whom have identified the historic threat he poses to the country, and turn it into his personal guard.”

The popular historian and professor Heather Cox Richardson called Trump’s attack on his political opponents, “the full leap to authoritarianism.”

“Trump’s full-throated embrace of Nazi ‘race science’ and fascism is deadly dangerous,” she added, noting his “campaign seems to be deliberately pushing the comparisons to historic American fascism by announcing that Trump will hold a rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden on October 27, an echo of a February 1939 rally held there by American Nazis in honor of President George Washington’s birthday.”

RELATED: Trump’s Upcoming Madison Square Garden MAGA Rally Sparks Comparisons to 1939 Nazi Event

And historian Steven A. Woodbridge wrote: “Pointing to the ‘enemy within’ is a classic strategy used by those with authoritarian tendencies many times in the past & it would appear nothing has changed. This man is a clear threat to democracy.”

Journalist Ahmed Baba warned, “Trump’s rhetoric is growing more violently authoritarian. His migrant fear-mongering is increasingly racist and now he’s once again saying he’ll deploy the military against people he disagrees with. Trump’s insane authoritarianism is the most important story of this election.”

Watch the videos below or at this link:

READ MORE: Trump Campaign an ‘Influence Operation’ Says Former State Dept. Official — Experts Agree

 

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