Roy Cohn was a McCarthy-era prosecutor and fixer who later became a mentor, advisor and attorney to Donald Trump, beginning in the 1970s; many people, per John Kiriakou, say it was Cohn who taught Trump the ruthlessness still visible in his politics today.[1] Kiriakou describes Cohn as “one of the darkest, ugliest figures in modern American history” — a closeted gay man who, in the early-to-mid 1950s, was simultaneously as openly gay as the era allowed and the person in charge of ruining the lives of gay men, working closely with a similarly closeted J. Edgar Hoover.[1]
The Hoover-Tolson blackmail episode
Kiriakou recounts that a Democratic member of the House of Representatives, targeted for his vote on the FBI budget, was blackmailed by the FBI over an extramarital affair. When he refused to back down as a matter of principle, the affair was leaked to his wife and to the press. In retaliation, the congressman gave nightly floor speeches between the 1953–54 election and the swearing-in of the new Congress, alleging that Hoover and deputy FBI director Clyde Tolson — in the congressman’s words — lived “as man and wife” in Hoover’s home, and that both men had had sexual relations with Cohn. The congressman was ruined but, per Kiriakou, was the only target who ever fought back.[2]
Trump mentorship and death
Cohn, still in his 20s during the McCarthy years, carried the lessons he learned from Joseph McCarthy and Hoover into business, connecting with Donald Trump in the 1970s and serving as his mentor, advisor and attorney.[3] He died of AIDS in the 1980s, alone and unloved, with no family at his funeral, and was buried in the family vault of a friend who took pity on him.[3]