A Swig to Roy Cohn [PHIL-OSOPHY]

Roy Cohn was an unforgettable lawyer best known for a great number of exploits, schemes and pursuits. He had friends in high places, too many to be counted.

One of them was my friend, former New York Congressman John LeBoutillier, who joins me twice weekly to discuss everything from Trump to baseball. A couple of years ago, during one of his Friday morning appearances, in his easygoing, nonchalant style, he said he was about to tape a segment for an HBO documentary about Roy Cohn. Cohn rose to prominence at 24, as a U.S. Department of Justice prosecutor at the espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, which concluded with Cohn's exerted persuasion for their execution in 1953.

Cohn was also known as a fiendish political fixer. From the time he served as Senator Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel, during the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954, for collaborating in the investigations of suspected communists, to becoming the most coercive and domineering legal fortune hunter in New York City, Cohn would become a close confidante of a young, brash real estate dynamo by the name of Donald Trump.

He's also the subject of that new HBO documentary coming out Friday, June 19 and directed by Ivy Meeropol, the granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. It's titled Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn and the film features a who's who list of notables that knew Cohn, like LeBoutillier, said to talk about a toast about Cohn's zeal for loyalty.

It will be interesting to see what more they can reveal anecdotally about Cohn, or if this is a pre-election hatchet job on Trump?

Phil Paleologos is the host of The Phil Paleologos Show on 1420 WBSM New Bedford. He can be heard weekdays from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Contact him at phil@wbsm.com and follow him on Twitter @PhilPaleologos. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.