Roy Cohn was a controversial New York-based lawyer best known for being Senator Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel during the 1954 Army McCarthy hearings. Interestingly, he had a special relationship with business tycoon and former U.S. President Donald Trump.
According to Biography, Roy Cohn’s long list of high-profile clientele included Donald Trump. The pair began working in 1973 after the U.S. Justice Department sued Trump and his father, Fred Trump. Reports suggest that the father-son duo and their company allegedly racially discriminated against African Americans at their New York City housing developments. Per Vanity Fair, the company exercised practices that made it difficult for black tenants to rent houses. The accusations involved marking applications with a “C” for “colored,” which was an infringement of the Fair Housing Act.
Cohn convinced Donald Trump and his father to counter-sue the Justice Department for defamation and demanded $100,000 in damages. Even though this measure was more of a stunt, the Trumps settled this case outside the court in 1975 without admitting guilt. Furthermore, the lawyer reportedly stated, “Tell them to go to hell and fight the thing in court and let them prove you discriminated.”
Following this case’s conclusion, Donald Trump and Roy Cohn grew closer. The U.S. President regularly consulted the lawyer and even interacted with him 15 to 20 times a day. The latter assisted the former in several personal and business matters, including his 1977 marriage to Ivana Trump. According to The Guardian, Cohn introduced Trump to media magnate Rupert Murdoch and also helped him mingle with influential power brokers.
The upcoming biographical drama film The Apprentice will delve deep into their relationship. Furthermore, the 2019 documentary Where’s My Roy Cohn? showcased Roy Cohn’s complicated life and career.
What happened to Roy Cohn?
Federal authorities charged Roy Cohn thrice in 1963 at the height of his power. These charges included bribery, perjury, and conspiracy. Interestingly, due to his political influence, he was acquitted every time. Subsequently, years later, his health began deteriorating, which led to his downfall and demise.
In 1984, Cohn claimed that he was suffering from liver cancer. However, the truth was that he was suffering from complications of AIDS, and his illness kept getting worse. Following this disclosure, his relationship with Donald Trump went dormant for some time. During this entire ordeal, his career was under threat because a judicial disciplinary panel accused him of several violations that included manipulating multimillionaire Lewis Rosenstiel’s will in 1975.
Many famous individuals, such as journalist Barbara Walters and Trump, testified in support of him at his 1986 hearings. His legal team tried to get this case to cease because of his compromised well-being. However, on June 23, 1986, he was disbarred by the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan.
Only six weeks later, on August 2, 1986, he died of a heart attack. In the 1987 book Trump: The Art of the Deal, Trump gave him a nod for his friendship. He stated, “Tough as he was, Roy had a lot of friends, and I’m not embarrassed to say I was one.”
Donald Trump hardly acknowledged Roy Cohn’s influence on him in public
According to Biography, they bonded impeccably since Trump and Cohn had similar upbringings. Cohn even identified Trump as a future global figure. In a June 2020 interview with Esquire, the documentary director mentioned above, Matt Tyrnauer, said that Cohn once stated that Trump was a meteor whose presence would be noticed worldwide. He said, “In one incredible piece of footage from the late ’70s, [Cohn] says that Trump’s a meteor rising from New York that will go on to touch every part of the country and part of the world. That’s something said in 1978-79. It seems like Nostradamus in hindsight.”
Interestingly, Trump hardly credited Cohn’s influence on his political and business achievements. In a 2016 conversation with The Washington Post, he merely called him a lawyer and denied their relationship. He said, “I don’t think I got that from Roy. I think I’ve had a natural instinct for that.” However, Tyrnauer strongly believes that Cohn played a huge role in creating an American president.
In the aforementioned June 2020 interview with Esquire, Matt Tyrnauer said that Cohn wouldn’t have been remembered if it had not been for Trump’s triumph in the 2016 United States presidential election. He stated, “I think Roy Cohn would have been a bold footnote to American history had it not been for the election of Trump. That’s his significance right now.”
He added, “We thought that those days were over because in the 20th century, back room politics were prevalent, dark relationships between moneyed interests in politics in the law were going on out of sight.”
The upcoming biographical drama film The Apprentice will see Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump and Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn.
