The name of Roy Cohn will forever live in infamy, but those who aren’t students of LGBTQ+ history may not know why. Cohn is in the spotlight again thanks to the new film The Apprentice, with Jeremy Strong as Cohn mentoring a young Donald Trump, played by Sebastian Stan. Yes, as if the damage Cohn did to many Americans with accusations of communism in the mid-20th century wasn’t enough, he helped unleash Trump upon the world. Cohn was gay but denied it to the end of his life. He didn’t come out even in The Autobiography of Roy Cohn, published in 1988, two years after his death from AIDS complications, but in posthumously written sections, coauthor Sidney Zion confirmed that Cohn was indeed gay. Here’s more about the man Politico once called “a Jewish anti-Semite and a homosexual homophobe.”
But according to many accounts, Trump was one of Cohn’s favorite clients. They met in 1973, when Trump and his father were facing a suit from the U.S. Department of Justice, alleging that they refused to rent apartments to Blacks at the many New York properties they owned or managed. Cohn advised the Trumps to fight back and contended the Justice Department “did not file a lawsuit” but “slapped together a piece of paper for use as a press release.” The Trumps eventually reached a settlement with the DOJ, agreeing not to engage in racial discrimination but never admitting they had.
Cohn and Donald Trump continued a close personal and professional relationship up to Cohn’s death. Early on, Cohn pegged Trump as a promising young man, saying, “This kid is going to own New York someday,” according to the Times. The lawyer assisted Trump in many of his real estate ventures and in his prenuptial agreement with first wife, Ivana Zelnickova. Cohn’s lobbying of Reagan administration officials in the 1980s may have been a key factor in the appointment of Maryanne Barry, Trump’s sister, to a federal judgeship — although even those who cite Barry’s connections note that she had formidable skills (she died last year). Trump and Cohn dined together often, hobnobbed at Studio 54, and talked on the phone constantly. Perhaps most important for Trump’s political career, Cohn introduced him to Republican activist and conspiracy theorist Roger Stone, another Cohn protégé, who became a frequent Trump surrogate in the mogul’s first presidential campaign.
Solidifying his reputation as a gay homophobe, Cohn even worked against LGBTQ+ causes, such as a civil rights ordinance in New York City, and frequently used antigay slurs. Along the way, he remained a mover and shaker in New York society, faced indictments for various crimes but was always acquitted, and often failed to pay his taxes and other bills. In addition to denying being gay, he denied that he had AIDS, insisting until his death that his disease was liver cancer.
R&I – TP
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