How Many Coincidences Become a Pattern?
A follow-up, considerably abridged
With acknowledgment to the meticulous historical work of Heather Cox Richardson, whose chronicling of the Trump era has helped document much of what follows.
Christopher Hitchens argued that to understand power, one must examine not what the powerful say but whom they choose beside them. Character is contagious; one’s companions are among its clearest expressions. Donald Trump has spent decades calling every indictment a witch hunt and every disgraced associate a victim of persecution. But when every lawyer is disbarred, every adviser indicted, every fixer convicted, and every predator finds welcome in his orbit, coincidence stops being a satisfying answer. The question becomes simpler: what kind of man keeps choosing these people?
This is not guilt by association. But across forty years and dozens of lawyers, operatives, executives, and confidants, the pattern itself becomes evidence. Trump’s career resembles less a political movement than an archaeological dig through the criminal justice system and it begins with the man who taught him how to survive scandal in the first place.
Roy Cohn, the Original Tutor
Roy Cohn was Trump’s attorney and, in effect, his political father the man who helped engineer Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist crusade and who taught the young developer permanent rules: never apologize, always counterattack, accuse your accuser, treat truth as negotiable and loyalty as absolute. The politics of permanent grievance that define Trumpism are, in large measure, Cohn’s ghost speaking through another man. Cohn was disbarred in 1986 for fraud and unethical conduct, and died of AIDS two months later, still denying both his illness and his sexuality. His greatest legacy was not a legal career. It was Donald Trump.
“Representing Donald Trump,” one begins to suspect, “is less a legal specialty than an occupational hazard.”
The Lawyers
Most presidents leave biographies written about their attorneys. Trump leaves disciplinary records. The legal profession is famously reluctant to punish its own, lawyers defend cartel bosses without professional consequence yet Trump’s orbit has produced a procession unmatched in modern history.
Counsel & Consequence
| Michael Cohen | Guilty: tax crimes, campaign finance violations, lying to Congress. Disbarred. |
| Rudy Giuliani | Disbarred in NY and D.C.; ordered to pay $148M for defaming Georgia election workers; bankrupt. |
| Alina Habba | Nearly $1M in sanctions for frivolous litigation against Hillary Clinton and dozens of others. |
| John Eastman | Lost California law license; faces criminal charges in Arizona. |
| Kenneth Chesebro | Guilty plea in Georgia; lost New York law license. |
| Jenna Ellis | Guilty plea; Colorado license suspended. |
| Sidney Powell | Guilty plea, after promising to “release the Kraken.” |
| L. Lin Wood | Surrendered his license rather than face likely disbarment. |
| Jeffrey Clark | Criminal indictment; disbarment recommended. |
| Christina Bobb | Indicted. |
| Evan Corcoran | Attorney-client privilege pierced under the rare crime-fraud exception, forced to testify against his own client. |
The Campaign & the Business Empire
The pattern is not confined to lawyers. It runs through the campaign apparatus and the business empire alike.
Advisers, Officers, Fundraisers
| Paul Manafort | Convicted: bank fraud, tax fraud, conspiracy, witness tampering. | Pardoned |
| Rick Gates | Guilty plea, conspiracy against the United States. | |
| George Papadopoulos | Guilty plea, lying to the FBI. | |
| Steve Bannon | Convicted of contempt of Congress; separately faces fraud charges in New York. | |
| Roger Stone | Seven felony convictions — obstruction, witness tampering, lying to Congress. | Commuted, then pardoned |
| Peter Navarro | Convicted and imprisoned. | |
| Michael Flynn | Pleaded guilty twice to lying to the FBI. | Pardoned |
| Mark Meadows | Indicted in multiple state criminal cases. | |
| Allen Weisselberg | Longtime CFO. Guilty of tax fraud, later perjury. Jailed twice. | |
| Elliott Broidy | Fundraiser. Guilty of acting as an illegal foreign agent. | Pardoned |
| David Pecker | National Enquirer publisher; ran “catch-and-kill.” Received immunity for cooperating. |
An extraordinary number of Trump associates escaped conviction only by agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors. The ecosystem produces cooperating witnesses at a striking rate.
“Representing Donald Trump, one begins to suspect, is less a legal specialty than an occupational hazard.”
– Civil Heresy
The Company of Predators
Perhaps the most morally revealing category. Trump called Jeffrey Epstein a “terrific guy” who liked women “on the younger side”; Epstein was later arrested for sex trafficking minors and died in federal custody. George Nader, an intermediary between Trump associates and Middle Eastern governments, pleaded guilty to child sex trafficking and child pornography. Republican donor Anton Lazzaro was convicted of sex trafficking minors; Ruben Verastigui was sentenced for possessing child sexual abuse material. Trump campaigned for Roy Moore despite accusations he pursued teenage girls in his thirties. He publicly defended Rob Porter after photographic evidence of alleged abuse against two ex-wives surfaced, and defended Bill O’Reilly forced from Fox News after multiple harassment settlements saying, “I don’t think Bill did anything wrong.”
Notice what is absent: not caution, not neutrality, not “let the courts decide.” Again and again, the instinct is reflexive defense.
The Fake Electors
Among those who attempted to overturn the 2020 election Boris Epshteyn, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, Jeffrey Clark, Christina Bobb, Mark Meadows, Jenna Ellis, and Sidney Powell an extraordinary concentration of lawyers and operatives now find themselves disbarred, suspended, indicted, or convicted for attempting to substitute fabricated paperwork for democratic consent.
Congress, the Family Circle, and the Periphery
The contagion reached Capitol Hill and the family table alike. Loyalty in the Trump era is rarely rewarded with honor. It is rewarded with clemency.
Beyond the Inner Circle
| Chris Collins | First sitting member of Congress to endorse Trump. Guilty of insider trading and lying to the FBI. Imprisoned. | Pardoned |
| Duncan Hunter | Guilty of stealing over $250,000 in campaign funds for personal use. Imprisoned. | Pardoned |
| Charles Kushner | Jared Kushner’s father. Guilty of tax evasion, illegal contributions, and hiring a prostitute to entrap his own brother-in-law. Imprisoned. | Pardoned |
| Bernard Kerik | Former NYPD commissioner. Guilty of eight federal felonies including tax fraud. | Pardoned |
| Imaad Zuberi | Major inaugural donor. Twelve years for tax crimes, illegal contributions, and acting as an undisclosed foreign agent. | |
| Alex van der Zwaan | First person sentenced in the Mueller investigation, for lying to federal investigators. | |
| Kolfage / Badolato / Shea | “We Build the Wall” fundraisers — convicted of fraud and money laundering. | |
| The Trump Organization | Convicted in New York, 2022, on 17 criminal counts — tax fraud, conspiracy, falsifying business records. |
The Final Defendant
For years, every scandal stopped one step short of the man at the center. Lawyers fell. Campaign managers fell. Advisers, fundraisers, executives, members of Congress, family associates, the corporation itself — all fell. Eventually gravity reached the source. Donald Trump became the first former president in American history convicted of felony crimes, found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He was found liable in civil court for sexual abuse and defamation against E. Jean Carroll, in judgments exceeding $80 million. A New York court separately found that he and his company had committed persistent business fraud, producing judgments totaling hundreds of millions against Trump, his adult sons, and the Trump Organization.
CohnLawyersCampaignBusinessCongress & FamilyTrump
Every branch eventually returns to the trunk.
Coincidence Ends
Trump claims his associates only become criminals after meeting him — the “deep state” targets them. Very well; entertain it.
- One disbarred attorney? Possible coincidence.
- Two? Interesting.
- Ten? Statistical absurdity.
- One convicted campaign chairman? Unfortunate.
- Multiple advisers convicted or imprisoned? Remarkable.
- An endless succession of sanctioned, disbarred lawyers? Institutional culture.
Corporate America has a saying: culture is defined by what leadership rewards. Politics obeys the same rule. People who value honesty recruit honest people. Those who repeatedly reward deceit, intimidation, and blind personal loyalty should not be surprised when those become the defining traits of the organizations they lead.
- 34 Felony counts, Trump himself
- 10 + Disbarred / sanctioned lawyers
- 8 + Pardoned associates
- $80M + Carroll civil judgment
The Final Verdict
Power has never been the same thing as virtue. Every tyrant possessed power; every crime boss commands loyalty. The more revealing measure of a leader is the wreckage left behind disbarred attorneys, convicted advisers, imprisoned campaign managers, fraud, tax crimes, foreign-agent violations, election conspiracies, perjury, sex traffickers, child predators, pardoned felons, corporate convictions, civil judgments. This is not a list of unfortunate acquaintances. It is a portrait.
How many, before coincidence surrenders to conclusion?
A man is known by the company he keeps. Donald Trump spent forty years introducing America to his company. In the end, he joined it.
Why It Matters
History often remembers leaders by the people they elevate, protect, and surround themselves with. This essay argues that repeated patterns of association deserve closer scrutiny than isolated incidents. Rather than examining a single controversy, it asks whether decades of recurring relationships reveal something fundamental about judgment, leadership, and character.
Key Takeaways
- The essay argues that persistent patterns of association provide insight into character beyond isolated events.
- Roy Cohn is presented as the foundational influence on Donald Trump’s approach to politics, loyalty, and conflict.
- The article catalogs legal, ethical, and criminal consequences involving numerous lawyers, advisers, executives, fundraisers, and political allies.
- It distinguishes between guilt by association and recurring patterns that, in the author’s view, warrant examination.
- The concluding argument is that leadership culture is reflected in the people consistently rewarded and protected over time.
Key Questions to Consider
Q1. What is the central argument of the essay?
The essay argues that a leader’s repeated personal and professional associations can reveal enduring patterns of judgment and character more clearly than campaign rhetoric alone.
Q2. Why is Roy Cohn given such prominence?
The essay presents Roy Cohn as Trump’s earliest political mentor, arguing that Cohn’s methods of confrontation, denial, and absolute loyalty profoundly influenced Trump’s public life.
Q3. Does the essay claim that association alone proves guilt?
No. It explicitly distinguishes between isolated association and recurring, long-term patterns, arguing that repeated choices over decades become meaningful evidence of personal judgment.
Q4. Why are lawyers emphasized throughout the essay?
The article argues that the unusually large number of attorneys who have faced disbarment, sanctions, indictments, guilty pleas, or convictions while representing Trump illustrates a broader institutional pattern.
Q5. What broader lesson does the essay offer about leadership?
The essay concludes that organizations often reflect the values rewarded by their leaders, making patterns of association an important measure of political character.
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