Trump's Shadow: Roy Cohn, Rudy Giuliani, and The Rebbe

More Thought Experiments about the man of the hour, Donald Trump, and his colorful assortment of allies.

Roy Cohn, mentor and lawyer to Donald J. Trump

Roy Cohn was a lawyer. He was the right hand of Senator Joe McCarthy during the infamous Red Scare hearings of the 1950s. As the lead counsel, he grilled those called to testify. His hatred for Communism was unrivaled. He made shocking suggestions for the time, saying that the Russians had infiltrated the State Department and were using sexual blackmail against officials to subvert national interests. Homosexuality in particular was deemed by him to be a national security threat, due to its effectiveness in controlling a blackmail target. This created the so-called “Lavender Scare.”¹ Looking back, knowing that Mossad assets like Jeffery Epstein and Ghislane Maxwell would later fulfill this role, one must wonder which “Communists” he was talking about; nascent Israel was much more pro-Soviet than pro-America, and had no shortage of chutzpah. They needed everything else.

Following Cohn’s work with McCarthy, he became a powerful lawyer in New York. His close ties to organized crime figures, real estate moguls, and powerful politicians earned him a reputation as a fixer who could make problems disappear. In the 1970s and 1980s, Cohn was notably connected to New York’s real estate and business elites, including Donald Trump. He served as Trump’s personal lawyer and mentor, teaching him tactics for how to deal with legal and media battles. “Teflon Don” was only possible because of the tricks of the trade pioneered by Cohn.