Reason # 26: Tutelage
Why do we need to defeat Donald Trump and ensure that a Democrat occupies the White House?
Yesterday, we briefly reviewed the sordid career of Roy Cohn, who played the role of Iago in the Army-McCarthy hearings and later served as a New York City fixer and mob attorney. What did he teach Donald Trump?
In the backlash to the Julius and Ethel Rosenburg trials and executions, it was revealed that Cohn had violated legal ethics in private telephone calls to the judge, improperly advising him to impose the death penalty. If one goes back to view the film from the McCarthy Army Senate Hearings of 1954, they can observe Cohn, in real time, whispering advice in senator McCarthy’s ear and then watch the senator go on the attack, attempting to bully his opponent into silence, interrupting, shouting, lying wildly and repeatedly intimidating by inuendo and character assassination.
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/welch-mccarthy.html
It is alleged that McCarthy picked Cohn as his counsel on the advice of New York City’s Cardinal Spellman and FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover.
Cohn was later accused of having been behind the leak of information, for the purpose of character assassination against two Democratic vice-presidential candidates, leaking documents showing that Thomas Eagleton (1972) had been treated for depression and attacking the character of the husband of Geraldine Ferraro (1984), contributing to the victory of Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, both of whom befriended Cohn.
When the Trumps called upon Roy Cohn in 1973, they were in deep trouble. Federal attorneys had solid evidence that the Trump Organization was systematically discriminating against African Americans, by refusing to rent them apartments. At that time, Donald Trump was very young and still malleable enough to listen to and learn from others.
Cohn characteristically went on the attack, filing a one hundred-million-dollar countersuit against the government. In the end, the Trumps got off with a virtual slap on the wrist. They were allowed to settle with a fine of only $1.3 million and were required only to invite African Americans to apply for housing in newspaper ads and to promise to read the Fair Housing Act. Neither Trump had to admit guilt in any form or to apologize. Also, characteristically, despite the adverse settlement, Donald Trump bragged that he had won.
It also seems reasonable that Trump adopted Cohn’s lifelong propensity for stiffing creditors and tax avoidance.
Donald Trump had learned important lessons from Cohn. He did not have to follow the rules. Laws, rules and regulations were petty nuisances that applied to others, not to him. If anyone tried to bring him before a judge and jury, he would henceforth follow the Cohn game plan. Never admit anything; never apologize. Counterattack in the media; slander and bully your opponent; deny and lie – the bigger the lie, the better. Lawyer up; file a blizzard of motions, countersue and delay, delay, delay. If and when you lost, file endless appeals to higher courts. In the end, in the improbably event that you have lost, just boast that you have won. If these tactics work against powerful opponents like New York City and the federal government, they work even better in civil cases where creditors, customers and stockholders have far more limited resources to deploy and can be screwed with relative ease and impunity.
Cohn has been quoted as saying that Donald Trump was his “best friend”, and that trump called him frequently by phone. Cohn also provided non-legal services. He introduced Donald Trump to Roger Stone and Paul Manafort and greased the skids for the appointment of Trump’s sister, Maryanne Trump, as a federal judge. He put him together with mafia Don “Fat Tony” Salerno, who provided the concrete to build Trump Tower. Is there any question why, when in legal difficulty, Donald Trump asks “where is my Roy Cohn?” At the end, Trump abandoned Cohn.
One final irony: Roy Cohn’s tactics in smearing leftists and homosexuals during the 1950s were widely referred to as “witch hunts”, an expression now directed on a regular basis by candidate Trump against his detractors and prosecutors.
The information from this post is drawn from Wikipedia, Robert Cay Johnson’s “The Big Cheat” and the documentary films “Where’s my Roy Cohn” and “Bully, Coward and Victim: The Story of Roy Cohn”.
Have a heart; use your mind, search your conscience, and vote for Democratic candidates – across the ballot – on November. 5th.
Please share this message with your friends and please, add your thoughts, to expand upon what are only brief sketches here.
Fred Grannis
August 12, 2024