Yesterday we looked at a federal judge and boy molesting Baptist Minister who was the prime mover behind building support by evangelical Christians for Donald Trump and the Maga movement. Today we’ll look at Roy Cohn; Trump’s friend and mentor.

Roy Cohn was an American lawyer and prosecutor who has been called “a Jewish anti-Semite and a homosexual homophobe.” (The Advocate). Cohn gained fame for his part in the Red Scare prosecutions as an ally and friend of Joseph McCarthy. It was Cohn that prosecuted the case against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

One often ignored part of the Red Scare were the political attacks by McCarthy and Cohn against opponents who were homosexual or falsely accused of homosexuality by the pair. Later it became common knowledge that Cohn was a homosexual and at the time it was rumored McCarthy was as well.

Former U.S. Senator Alan K. Simpson wrote: “The so-called ‘Red Scare’ has been the main focus of most historians of that period of time. A lesser-known element…and one that harmed far more people was the witch-hunt McCarthy and others conducted against homosexuals.” Wikipedia

McCarthy and Cohn started accusing military leaders in their Red Scare indictments. In 1954 the Army–McCarthy hearings brought McCarthyism to a halt and Cohn resigned. He then became a New York City lawyer, a career that lasted 30 years. During this time he was indicted three times for blackmail, conspiracy and other charges. He was acquitted each time. One of his clients was Donald Trump.

In 1971 Trump was accused of violating the Fair Housing Act by keeping black renters out of his various apartment complexes. This was allegedly done by telling black applicants there were no units available. Cohn represented Trump and filed an unsuccessful countersuit against the government. Trump settled out of court.

Cohn allegedly introduced Trump to mob boss Anthony Salerno who provided Trump with concrete at reduced prices to build Trump Towers.

In his 1987 book The Art of the Deal Trump wrote about “all the hundreds of ‘respectable’ guys who made careers out of boasting about their uncompromising integrity but have absolutely no loyalty …. What I liked most about Roy Cohn was that he would do just the opposite.” Wikipedia

In 1986, a five-judge panel of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court disbarred Cohn for unethical and unprofessional conduct, including misappropriation of clients’ funds, lying on a bar application, and falsifying a change to a will.

Cohen opposed same sex marriage. In his autobiography, he expressed harsher views towards homosexuals both publicly and privately. When opposing the aforementioned bill, he told Andrew Stein, “you’ve gotta get off this fag stuff,” and called gay activists “fucking fags.”

The young Cohn also attached himself to several older powerful men who, in return, provided Cohn with assistance. One of them may have been New York’s Cardinal Francis Spellman, whose own alleged homosexuality has been a subject of controversy in the Catholic Church. Although Cohn always denied his homosexuality in public, he had a few known boyfriends over the course of his life, including his assistant Russell Eldridge, who died from AIDS in 1984, and Peter Fraser, Cohn’s partner for the last two years of his life, who was 30 years his junior. Speculation about Cohn’s sexuality intensified following his death from AIDS in 1986. In a 2008 article published in The New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin quotes Cohn associate Roger Stone: “Roy was not gay. He was a man who liked having sex with men. Gays were weak, effeminate. He always seemed to have these young blond boys around. It just wasn’t discussed. He was interested in power and access. Wikipedia

Roy Cohn died on 2 Aug 1986 of complications due to advanced AIDS. Cohn referred to Donald Trump as his best friend. Cohn told journalists that Trump phoned him 15 to 20 times a day and according to Christine Seymour, his long-time switchboard operator, Trump was the last person to speak to Cohn on the phone before he died in 1986

• Trump’s Role Model: The Most Evil Gay Man in America YouTube
• Who was Roy Cohn? All about the closeted gay lawyer who mentored Donald Trump The Advocate
• The Final Lesson Donald Trump Never Learned From Roy Cohn Politico
• Roy Cohn: The mysterious US lawyer who helped Donald Trump rise to power BBC
• How Donald Trump and Roy Cohn’s Ruthless Symbiosis Changed America Vanity Fair