Roy Cohn

DOJ Returns to Court: Trump Violated 1975 Discrimination Settlement

| Importance: 8/10

Just three years after settling the landmark housing discrimination case with a court-supervised consent decree, the Department of Justice returned to federal court with new allegations: the Trump Organization had violated the settlement terms and continued systematic discrimination against Black …

Donald Trump Fred Trump Roy Cohn racism housing discrimination trump family civil rights doj
Read more →

Trump Settles Housing Discrimination Case Without Admitting Guilt

| Importance: 7/10

After nearly two years of aggressive legal combat, Donald Trump and his father Fred Trump signed a consent decree settling the Department of Justice’s landmark housing discrimination lawsuit. The settlement included the standard legal disclaimer that it was “in no way an admission” …

Donald Trump Fred Trump Roy Cohn racism housing discrimination trump family civil rights doj
Read more →

DOJ Sues Trump and Father for Systemic Housing Discrimination

| Importance: 8/10

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a major civil rights lawsuit against Donald Trump, his father Fred Trump, and their real estate company, Trump Management Inc., for systematic racial discrimination in housing. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, …

Donald Trump Fred Trump Roy Cohn racism housing discrimination trump family civil rights doj
Read more →

Joseph Welch Confronts McCarthy with Have You No Sense of Decency in Army Hearings

| Importance: 8/10

On the 30th day of the Army-McCarthy hearings, Boston lawyer Joseph Welch—hired by the Army to make its case—delivered one of the most famous rebukes in American political history. The hearings, which ran from April to June 1954, investigated conflicting accusations between the U.S. Army and Senator …

Joseph Welch Joseph McCarthy Roy Cohn G. David Schine red-scare political-persecution institutional-resistance media
Read more →

Army-McCarthy Hearings Begin as Military Charges Senator with Improper Pressure for Aide

| Importance: 8/10

On April 22, 1954, the Army-McCarthy hearings began—36 days of televised proceedings that exposed Senator Joseph McCarthy’s methods to a national audience and began his political downfall. The hearings were triggered by the Army’s March 11 report charging McCarthy and his chief counsel …

Joseph McCarthy Roy Cohn Robert Stevens Joseph Welch G. David Schine +2 more mccarthyism congressional-action military-politics political-theater institutional-resistance
Read more →

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Executed at Sing Sing, Cold War's Most Controversial Death Penalty Case

| Importance: 8/10

On June 19, 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed by electric chair at Sing Sing prison, becoming the first American civilians executed for espionage during peacetime and the only Americans executed for Cold War spy activities. Their case remains the most controversial capital punishment in …

Julius Rosenberg Ethel Rosenberg Roy Cohn Irving Saypol Irving Kaufman +3 more mccarthyism red-scare capital-punishment civil-liberties political-persecution +1 more
Read more →

Roy Cohn Establishes Blackmail and Intimidation Network

| Importance: 8/10

In early 1953, Roy Cohn begins developing a systematic blackmail infrastructure during the McCarthy Senate hearings, leveraging anti-communist hysteria and homophobic tactics to gather compromising information on political and cultural figures. As 24-year-old chief counsel to Senator Joseph …

Roy Cohn Joseph McCarthy J. Edgar Hoover FBI Genovese Crime Family blackmail political-manipulation mccarthy-era intelligence-operations organized-crime +2 more
Read more →

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Convicted of Espionage in Controversial Red Scare Trial

| Importance: 8/10

On March 29, 1951, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage after a three-week trial that began on March 6, 1951. The couple had been charged with providing top-secret information about American radar, sonar, jet propulsion engines, and nuclear weapon designs to …

Julius Rosenberg Ethel Rosenberg David Greenglass Ruth Greenglass Roy Cohn +1 more red-scare political-persecution surveillance-state death-penalty institutional-corruption
Read more →