BOOBYTRAP: Roy Cohn: As Evil As He Looks?

Poor Roy always looked sickly and downright evil. At least, I haven't seen any photos of him where he might be called a handsome man. When I'm thinking of the fact that this creature had a tremendous part in turning tRump into the mean individual, he has become, I'm ready to think that Roy's looks are the perfect symbol of what he really was, namely genuinely evil. However, I may be somewhat unfair to him, so that he is not quite the ogre I see him as.

They first met at a fashionable nightclub in 1973 where the lawyer and prosecutor Roy Cohn (1927-1986) was introduced to the young and very ambitious Donald J. Trump who decided to hire him to help the family with some legal problems. Roy, who was a closeted gay, had a penchant for young, blonde men, but the two of them are not assumed to have had a sexual relationship although they became extremely close. For instance, often they talked on the phone several times a day.

The fame and status of Roy Cohn stems from his tough handling of the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg-case and his being Senator Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel in the Army-McCarthy-hearings. Both of these endeavors were centered on what was considered the ultimate threat at that time: Communism.

His influence on Donald Trump was immense, and he not only represented, but also mentored him. However, he also represented many other clients, some in Catholic clergy, some in the political world, real estate as well as organized crime. At one point he was considered one of the best, but over the years his reputation waned. His career as a lawyer ended five weeks before his death from Aids when he was disbarred for unethical conduct: He had tried to fraud a dying client into making him his heir.

There is no doubt about the bad character of Roy Cohn, and he taught tRump ways to exploit people and the system that did not exactly better what he may have of a soul. Being short, not in the least handsome as well as suffering from a botched pediatric surgery to modify the appearance of his nose which only left him with a rather prominent scar did not leave him with a "good hand" in the erotic game of the gay world. However, he was undeniable very smart as well as ruthless which sort of became his "trademark".

In his private life he tended to focus on people who were what he himself wasn't, but the closest person to him was his mother whom he worshiped as much as she worshiped him, or maybe even more. As to his being gay, he really was closeted and he also denied suffering from the "gay-pest", Aids, which eventually killed him. No matter what, he did have some well-known romantic relationships, one of them being with the wealthy heir G. David Schine.

Roy Cohn with G. David Schine and gay-hater Joseph McCarthy

Being what he was, it must have been a very strange and not exactly pleasant experience to work with and for Senator Joseph McCarthy, who was adamant in his witch-hunt for and expulsion of gays. After ending his assignment with the gay-basher, McCarthy, Roy Cohn entered private practice as an attorney. His status as a lawyer was not the same as before, and he was indicted several times on various charges, but also he was acquitted. Actually, to me he seems to have steeped himself in what can't be seen otherwise than what he, as a representative of the law system, was supposed to fight, for instance blackmail. But then, in some respects, he was the man of contradictions: When the first rights of the gay citizens were being discussed, he said that homosexual teachers posed a grave threat to children.

At some point he tried his hand in politics, sort of "his way", namely e.g. using bribes to help others win. Interestingly enough he served as a helper for Ronald Reagan in his 1980-campaign. However, the most interesting part of his work, as seen from a 2026-angle, is what he did for tRump, for instance when he was accused of keeping black inhabitants out of his housing programs. He didn't win the case, but it may have given tRump some good ideas for the future. Anyway, his representing both tRump and the mobster Anthony Salerno came to play a role in the building of the so-called "Trump Tower. When he died, he had achieved what he had said was one of his main goals, namely to be totally broke and owing millions to the IRS. That may be his form of defiance against the world, but it makes me think of what Epstein said about tRump and his lack of morals: