Attorney Roy Cohn, left, conferred with the red-hot Senator Joseph McCarthy, R-Wisc., During Senate hearings in 1954.
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Keystone / Hulton Archives / Getty Images
Attorney Roy Cohn, left, conferred with the red-hot Senator Joseph McCarthy, R-Wisc., During Senate hearings in 1954.
Keystone / Hulton Archives / Getty Images
The committee closing in
In March 2017, when clashes with the FBI Director and the Attorney General broke out just weeks after his presidency, Donald Trump asked out loud, “Where’s my Roy Cohn?” To see also : Portraits at Volusia courthouse in DeLand honor diverse legal pioneers.
By December 2020, with only weeks left of his term, Trump still had not received the answer to his question.
He was surrounded by lawyers. But no one could play the role – or take the place – as the controversial adviser who had changed his life decades earlier.
Cohn was already a legend when Trump met him in 1973. Cohn had been in the news for decades, prosecuting nuclear espionage or searching for Communists or defending celebrity clients. Among those he represented were Cardinal Francis Spellman, New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and New York crime chiefs Carmine Galante and John Gotti.
Trump met him at the fashionable Manhattan bar called Le Club and soon trusted him to afford to handle lawsuits and legal orders and life in general. He drafted four versions of a marriage pact ahead of Trump’s first marriage. (His first wife, Ivana Trump, died Thursday at the age of 73.)
Cohn was known for telling clients to fight all charges, to sue them when they were sued, and never to admit defeat. Trump has been following his formula for half a century, and it has come to mean a lot to the nation.
While the former president has left office, he has not left the stage. He continues to worry about the political waters by denying that he was defeated in 2020 and teasing a new candidacy until 2024. Moreover, he may still be accused of what he did in an attempt to stay in office after his defeat.
Last week, the hearings of the House Committee to investigate the attack on the Capitol on January 6 led us back to the day the attack was launched.
It was December 18, 2020, four days after the Electoral College met in the 50 state capitals and elected Joe Biden the 46th president, obeying the results of the election, which were conducted in each state.
So even though his defeat at the time was official, Trump was still trying to find a way to stay in power.
His efforts to overturn the 2020 results had made no progress in state or federal courts, even where the judges were Trump’s own nominees. Law firms that had signed on to fight election fraud had not found anyone and reported off. Trump could not even find a willing warrior on his White House legal team.
A prodigy and a legend
Yet the frustrated established still would not acknowledge reality. Read also : President Biden delivers remarks on the June jobs report, holds naturalization ceremony in which 21 immigrants will become U.S. citizens. He was looking for someone else – outside lawyers, freelancers – who could be open to his claims of a stolen election or ready to take his case and propose strategies.
That was what led to the December 18 meeting in the White House when two such lawyers – Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell – and other supporters talked to Trump about declaring martial law, using the military to seize voting machines or turning Powell into a “special adviser” with writ of summons.
When White House Attorney Pat Cipollone heard that the meeting was underway, he and others from his office intervened and protested vehemently. They said the movements under discussion lacked a legal basis or justification, especially given the complete lack of evidence of fraud. There was no “stealing” to stop.
But the external team had a different view.
“I would categorically describe it as: ‘You are not tough enough,'” Giuliani reported in a videotaped testimony to the committee on January 6.
Still, barristers’ fighting continued for six hours, according to witnesses. It started in the oval office and continued upstairs in the personal residence. At one point, the committee was told, Trump made a gesture to his team in the White House and asked, “Do you see what I have to put up with?”
Trump was still looking for someone who would fight for a different set of rules. All-in, no teams blocked, no detention. Someone for whom the only consideration was to win for the client. Someone like Roy Cohn.
A fateful meeting in a bar
Cohn was a prodigy, the son of a New York judge who was well acquainted with street politics as well as that of City Hall. Young Roy grew up in both worlds. See the article : Civil Solicitor – George Mathers & Co. He would later become known for saying “Do not tell me what the law is, tell me who the judge is.”
After going through college and Columbia Law School, he was appointed assistant U.S. attorney in New York as a 20-year-old (not old enough to vote at the time). Four years later, he prosecuted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, accused of helping the Soviet Union gain access to nuclear weapons secrets. Both went to the electric chair.
In the early 1950s, Cohn would be senior adviser to Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, as the first-term Republican from Wisconsin chaired a Senate committee looking for Communists in government. Cohn was by his side when McCarthy dominated the news and was nominated for the Republican National Ticket in 1952.
Although McCarthy never actually revealed any real communists, he ruined many careers and lives. Along the way, his name became synonymous with an era and with the tactics of making baseless but damaging accusations that did real harm despite being untrue.
Cohn was still with him when the senator received the Army in 1954, claiming that the Pentagon protected “red” and Soviet sympathizers. This led to television hearings that backfired and cost McCarthy much of his support in the GOP. McCarthy was criticized by his colleagues in a highly unusual vote in the Senate. He left the chamber, never spoke there again, and died a few years later.
Cohn, however, returned to New York and flourished. He had established a reputation for being tough to the point of being ruthless. And in a world of high-stakes lawsuits and prosecutions, that reputation was gold. And it was earned many times.
Along the way, he met a young real estate developer on the go who was unlikely to prove to be his most famous customer of all.
From left, Donald Trump, Ivana Trump, Elizabeth Trump, Mary Anne Trump and Roy Cohn are attending the 38th annual Horatio Alger Awards dinner in 1985 in New York. Pictures)
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