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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
|---|---|
| All the President’s Thugs | All the President’s Thugs |
| (1 day later) | |
| Among the most disturbing accusations the pornographic film star Stephanie Clifford made in her “60 Minutes” interview about President Trump was that after she sold her story about Mr. Trump to a magazine in 2011, a man approached her in a parking lot, while she was with her infant daughter, and said: “Leave Trump alone. Forget the story.” | |
| “And then he leaned around,” she continued, “and looked at my daughter and said: ‘That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.’ ” | |
| Five years later, said Ms. Clifford, known professionally as Stormy Daniels, when Mr. Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen offered to pay her $130,000 to be silent about her relationship with Mr. Trump, she took the deal because she “was concerned for my family and their safety.” | Five years later, said Ms. Clifford, known professionally as Stormy Daniels, when Mr. Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen offered to pay her $130,000 to be silent about her relationship with Mr. Trump, she took the deal because she “was concerned for my family and their safety.” |
| There is, of course, only Ms. Clifford’s word on this incident, which reads like a scene from a low-grade gangster movie. But this is not the first time that someone who has crossed Donald Trump has spoken of being threatened. | There is, of course, only Ms. Clifford’s word on this incident, which reads like a scene from a low-grade gangster movie. But this is not the first time that someone who has crossed Donald Trump has spoken of being threatened. |
| Last year, BuzzFeed News reported that in 2009, a lawyer representing investors at risk of losing more than $1 billion in a Trump casino bankruptcy got a frightening phone call from a man who called himself Carmine. If you keep messing “with Mr. Trump,” the caller said, using more pungent language, “we know where you live, and we’re going to your house for your wife and kids.” The F.B.I. found that the call was made from a telephone booth across from the Ed Sullivan Theater, just before Mr. Trump was a guest on the “Late Show With David Letterman” there. | |
| The private investigator Bo Dietl said he had worked over the years for Mr. Trump and that “if someone was targeting Donald on something, and going after him, I would do some confidential investigation for him as far as to deter anybody going after Donald.” | The private investigator Bo Dietl said he had worked over the years for Mr. Trump and that “if someone was targeting Donald on something, and going after him, I would do some confidential investigation for him as far as to deter anybody going after Donald.” |
| Mr. Dietl denied any knowledge of the threatening phone call, but, BuzzFeed reported, he referred to “shareholders” in Atlantic City “doing something” and sending a lawyer after Trump. So, Mr. Dietl said, Mr. Trump had him dig up dirt about the lawyer. | Mr. Dietl denied any knowledge of the threatening phone call, but, BuzzFeed reported, he referred to “shareholders” in Atlantic City “doing something” and sending a lawyer after Trump. So, Mr. Dietl said, Mr. Trump had him dig up dirt about the lawyer. |
| In 1982, after the New York City housing commissioner, Anthony Gliedman, declined to grant a $20 million tax abatement for Trump Tower, Mr. Gliedman told the New York City police commissioner that he had received a call “threatening his life” over the abatement, according to BuzzFeed. (Mr. Gliedman later went to work for Mr. Trump.) | |
| Brent Blakely, a lawyer for Mr. Cohen — a lawyer for a lawyer, that’s how this crew rolls — demanded an apology from Ms. Clifford and said of her accusation, “Mr. Cohen had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any such person or incident, and does not even believe that any such person exists, or that such incident ever occurred.” | Brent Blakely, a lawyer for Mr. Cohen — a lawyer for a lawyer, that’s how this crew rolls — demanded an apology from Ms. Clifford and said of her accusation, “Mr. Cohen had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any such person or incident, and does not even believe that any such person exists, or that such incident ever occurred.” |
| Ms. Clifford, of course, never said Mr. Cohen had anything to do with the threat, although on Monday she sued him for defamation for implying last month that she was lying about the president. But Mr. Trump likes his lawyers to blow hard, like his mentor, the legal torpedo Roy Cohn. | Ms. Clifford, of course, never said Mr. Cohen had anything to do with the threat, although on Monday she sued him for defamation for implying last month that she was lying about the president. But Mr. Trump likes his lawyers to blow hard, like his mentor, the legal torpedo Roy Cohn. |
| In July 2015, The Daily Beast reported that a book about the Trumps said that during divorce proceedings more than 25 years ago Mr. Trump’s first wife, Ivana, said that once, in a furious rage, he had raped her. | |
| Mr. Cohen got angry with the Daily Beast reporters: “I will take you for every penny you still don’t have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know. … You write a story that has Mr. Trump’s name in it, with the word ‘rape,’ and I’m going to mess your life up. … You’re going to have judgments against you, so much money, you’ll never know how to get out from underneath it.” | |
| We live at a time when a porn star displays more credibility and class than a president, the president’s lawyers distinguish themselves through swagger more than legal skill, and we seriously wonder just how thuggish the man in the Oval Office is. It seems like a bad dream. |