Throughout the past three years, during the Mueller investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, Trump has repeatedly asked “Where is my Roy Cohn?”
For those of you who don’t know who Roy Cohn was, he was Trump’s lawyer throughout his career as a developer and up until his death in 1986. He was generally regarded as one of the sleaziest, vicious and unethical lawyers that the American legal system ever produced.
Cohn rose to prominence during the 50’s decade as counsel to U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy and enabled McCarthy in his often-bogus senate investigations into the loyalty of Americans which produced little in concrete evidence but terrorized and destroyed the reputations, careers and lives of many. Cohn and McCarthy’s targets weren’t just selected because of their suspected political beliefs, they were responsible for many gay men being fired for government service and routinely tried to silence opponents by spreading rumors that they were gay.
Following his departure from government employment, Cohn practiced law in New York where he represented Trump, Rupert Murdoch and various organized crime figures. During the decades of the 70’s and 80’s Cohn was charged with professional misconduct three times and indicted by the U.S. Government for financial improprieties involving New York City contracts. He was acquitted of those charges. In 1986 he was disbarred from the practice of law after he misappropriated a client’s funds, lied on a Bar application and tried to pressure a dying client to change his will to make himself a beneficiary.
In 1984 Cohn was diagnosed as suffering from AIDS. Perhaps because of his earlier persecution of gay men, he chose to remain in the closet while accepting experimental treatment in clinical trials of AZT. He died in 1986.
Throughout the Mueller probe, Trump would frequently disparage his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, for recusing himself from the Russian probe which led to the appointment of Robert Mueller. He would insist that Presidents Kennedy and Obama had Attorney Generals in Robert Kennedy and Eric Holder that would personally protect them, all while lamenting “Where is my Roy Cohn?”
To be sure, Jeff Session was no Robert Kennedy or Eric Holder. In coordination with his former protégé, Steven Miller, they implemented a policy of separating immigrant children from their parents on the Texas border and maintaining them is substandard detention facilities. Some of the parents were deported without their children and a number of their children may never be reunited because their whereabouts are unknown.
In 2019 Trump appointed William Barr to be Attorney General.
Since his appointment, Barr is attempting to get the Affordable Care Act nullified before the U.S. Supreme Court despite the fact we are in the midst of a pandemic that has killed over 80.000 Americans to date.
Barr withheld the Mueller Report for almost a month so that he could publicly misstate its findings and create a false narrative that it exonerated Trump despite its stated conclusion to the contrary.
Barr has opened investigations into the origins of the Russian election meddling investigation despite his own Justice Department Inspector General’s conclusion that no impropriety occurred at the inception that casts doubt on its legitimacy. Barr has repeatedly sought to discredit IG’s finding.
Barr intervened in the yet to be sentenced, Trump crony Roger Stone case, undermining the sentencing recommendation of the career prosecutors who tried the case and resulting in their withdrawal from the case. Following this move by Barr over two-thousand present and former Justice department employees signed a letter calling for him to resign.
In a series of political Jiu jitsu moves, Barr maneuvered the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jessie Liu, out of her position and installed his own aide, Timothy Shea, as the interim U.S. Attorney. Following Shea’s appointment, Liu’s nomination for Deputy Counsel at the Treasury Department was withdrawn and she left government service.
Shortly after his interim appointment, Shea signed the reduced sentencing recommendation in Roger Stone’s case despite also having signed the original seven to nine year recommendation. Need one wonder whether it is Barr or Shea calling the play?
As I write this, Barr has directed Shea to drop the criminal case in which Trump former National security Adviser, Michael Flynn, is awaiting sentencing. It will be remembered that Flynn pled guilty not once but twice to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian Ambassador, Sergey Kislyak involving the sanctions imposed by the Obama Administration for that country’s meddling in the 2016 election.
In true Lewis Carroll Through the Looking Glass reasoning, Barr has determined that the lies were not material to the investigation and it should have been closed without Flynn being interviewed. This of course ignores the fact that by lying about the conversations, Flynn made himself a potential target of Russian blackmail that could put the security of this country at risk. Barr has also conveniently ignored the fact that part of Flynn’s plea agreement included an agreement not to prosecute Flynn for failing to register as an agent for the Government of Turkey while trying to arrange for the rendition of a Turkish cleric living in Pennsylvania at the behest of the Ergodan government.
Rule 48(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure does not permit the Government from dismissing an indictment without the approval of the court. Judge Emmett Sullivan who is presiding over the Flynn case has scheduled court proceedings to determine whether he will consent to a dismissal. He has appointed the highly regarded John Gleeson, a former Federal prosecutor and Judge to act as a devil’s advocate to probe the issues and motivation underlying the government’s motion to dismiss.
Additionally, Judge Sullivan has invited interested parties to file amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs for guidance of the wisdom of a dismissal. Lawyers representing the two-thousand plus employees that called for Barr’s resignation following his intervention in the Roger Stone case and, again, after he moved to dismiss the Flynn case, are filing such a legal brief.
While it will be interesting to see what Judge, Sullivan decides, in the end, there is one fact that is undeniable.
Trump has finally found his Roy Cohn.