President Donald Trump faces a court date Tuesday and as he prepares to fight classified documents charges, insiders suggest he still wishes for a lawyer in the mold of mentor Roy Cohn.
The shocking 37 charges were unsealed last week – the embattled Republican frontrunner expecting to plead not guilty claims he mishandled classified papers – in a Miami court Tuesday.
The New York Times revealed that part of the indictment included some of ‘the most damning evidence’ as having come from one of Trump’s own attorneys, M. Evan Corcoran.
Corcoran was notoriously forced to give up attorney-client privilege in the grand jury probe and Corcoran’s notes, the Times claims, ‘essentially gave prosecutors a road map to building their case.’
What Trump really still desires is a legal mind similar to that of Cohn, who was notoriously a mentor for Trump who, he claims, ‘brutalized’ for him.
President Donald Trump faces a court date Tuesday and as he prepares to fight classified documents charges, insiders suggest he still wishes for a lawyer in the mold of mentor Roy Cohn
It’s been a claim dating back to at least 2018 that Trump, in the crucible of his own legal difficulties, is reported to have pleaded to his White House staff: ‘Where’s My Roy Cohn?’
Cohn became Trump’s lawyer and fixer in the early eighties when he was looking to escape his father’s outer-boroughs empire and move into Manhattan’s real estate world.
The attorney was Senator Joseph McCarthy’s chief council and fixer during his communist and homosexual witch hunts in the ’50s.
Cohn had a reputation for attacking, never apologizing, stopping at nothing to reach his goals, distracting his opponents as well as lying and cheating.
‘Those are the rules of war. Donald learned that from Roy’, stated Trump adviser and Cohn protégé, Roger Stone.
‘Donald calls me 15 to 20 times a day. He’s always asking, ‘What is the status of this…and that?’ said Roy Cohn in a 1980 interview with Vanity Fair.
They met seven years earlier in 1973 when the budding real-estate developer and his father, Fred were in hot water with the Justice Department for housing discrimination against African-Americans.
Trump approached Cohn for advice during a chance encounter at a private midtown dinner club known as ‘Le Club.’ Cohn’s advice? ‘Tell them to go to hell and fight the thing in court and let them prove you discriminated.’
It’s been a claim dating back to at least 2018 that Trump, in the crucible of his own legal difficulties, is reported to have pleaded to his White House staff: ‘Where’s My Roy Cohn?’
The shocking 37 charges were unsealed last week – the embattled Republican frontrunner expecting to plead not guilty claims he mishandled classified papers – in a Miami court Tuesday. Evidence included these boxes stacked at Mar-a-Lago
Cohn became Trump’s lawyer and fixer in the early eighties when he was looking to escape his father’s outer-boroughs empire and move into Manhattan’s real estate world
Cohn (pictured right) was Senator Joseph McCarthy’s (pictured center) chief council and fixer during his communist and homosexual witch hunts in the ’50s
Cohn’s first big favor to Trump happened in 1976 when he secured a 42-year long tax abatement from the City of New York (during a time when the city was practically bankrupt) for Trump’s Grand Hayatt Hotel on 42nd Street.
The $400million tax abatement was orchestrated by Cohn and his favor-banking associate, Stanley Friedman, who signed off the deal on his last day as Deputy Mayor of NYC.
This would become the longest ever tax abatement granted by the city and to return the favor, Cohn made Friedman a partner in his law firm.
However, Trump now faces the very real possibility that his attorney Corcoran could testify in court at his trial in the indictment case.
‘I always used to think that attorneys really had a very high status in life, that when you had an attorney, that attorneys can’t be subpoenaed, they can’t be summoned to talk,’ Trump told Newsmax in March
Cohn’s first big favor to Trump happened in 1976 when he secured a 42-year long tax abatement from the City of New York (during a time when the city was practically bankrupt) for Trump’s Grand Hayatt Hotel on 42nd Street
Cohn had a reputation for attacking, never apologizing, stopping at nothing to reach his goals, distracting his opponents as well as lying and cheating
‘They bring attorneys in as though they’re, you know, witnesses to a case. It wasn’t supposed to be that way,’ he added.
The 76-year-old on Thursday said he had been told he was being indicted in relation to espionage – the first time in U.S. history that a former president has faced federal charges.
Trump is facing four separate counts each carrying a potential prison time of 20 years: conspiracy to obstruct justice; withholding a document or record; corruptly concealing a document or record; and concealing a document in a federal investigation.
One count carries a 10 year sentence: willful retention of national defense information.
And the final two counts have a maximum of five years each: scheme to conceal, and false statements and representations. Trump’s indictment remains under seal, but his decision to publicize it means feds could unseal it as early as Friday, ahead of next Tuesday’s court appearance in Miami.
The news was met with outrage among the Republican party, with even his 2024 rival, Ron DeSantis, declaring that the ‘weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society.’ DeSantis stopped short of saying whether he’d pardon his rival if Trump was convicted, despite calls for the Florida governor to commit to doing so.
Trump himself – who was in Bedminster, New Jersey when the indictment news broke – condemned the indictment in a clip which The New York Times said was pre-recorded, saying it was political persecution, and said: ‘I am innocent.’
Trump is making his first public appearances this weekend at a rally in Georgia
Donald Trump supporters at the Columbus Airport, Columbus,Georgia, Saturday
Extraordinary new photos (above) revealed in the damning filing lay out how Trump valet Walt Nauta walked into a storage room and found intelligence files on allies including the United Kingdom and Australia spilled on the floor
He will appear in court in Miami on Tuesday at 3pm, where the charges will be put to him. Trump denies all allegations he faces.
Jack Smith, the special counsel who is overseeing the investigation, has not commented.
He was indicted in Manhattan in April on state charges of making hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels – those state charges, too, were historic.
But the classified information charges are federal and significantly more serious, and carry hefty prison sentences.
Prosecutors have investigated the transfer of presidential files to his Mar-a-Lago Florida estate since last year.
The probe exploded into the headlines in August when the FBI searched Trump’s Florida home, recovering 11,000 documents, including about 100 that were marked as classified.
For his part, Trump has repeatedly insisted he did nothing wrong and that he is the victim of a federal witch hunt.
At times the controversy has even boosted his standing in the polls and allowed him to raise money from supporters who see a ‘deep state’ plot to take him out of the 2024 race.
‘The corrupt Biden Administration has informed my attorneys that I have been Indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax, even though Joe Biden has 1850 Boxes at the University of Delaware, additional Boxes in Chinatown, D.C., with even more Boxes at the University of Pennsylvania, and documents strewn all over his garage floor where he parks his Corvette, and which is ‘secured’ by only a garage door that is paper thin, and open much of the time,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday night.
‘I have been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, at 3 PM. I never thought it possible that such a thing could happen to a former President of the United States, who received far more votes than any sitting President in the History of our Country, and is currently leading, by far, all Candidates, both Democrat and Republican, in Polls of the 2024 Presidential Election. I AM AN INNOCENT MAN!’
Later Thursday night, he put out a video.
‘Very sadly we’re a nation in decline and yet they go after a very popular president,’ Trump said.
‘I’m an innocent man, I did nothing wrong,’ he continued, vowing to ‘fight this out.’
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Trump also said he would ‘of course’ plead not guilty.
Security is already being increased around the courthouse in Miami ahead of his appearance before a judge, scheduled for 3pm on Tuesday.
The investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents is being overseen by a special counsel, Jack Smith, who was appointed by the Attorney General Merrick Garland in November.
