Why many of Trump’s people can’t resist him

Each episode of the true-crime drama currently airing from Room 390 of the Cannon House Office Building in Washington has offered variations on a theme: Former President Donald Trump used the powers of his office, and blunt force, to foment a coup after losing the 2020 presidential election.
The plot twists have largely involved how individuals or institutions responded to Trump’s entreaties to commit crimes. The fifth day of testimony overseen by the bipartisan congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol focused on a trio of Justice Department lawyers who did the right thing when Trump cracked his whip — and one who didn’t.
As Trump was trying to corrupt the nation’s leading law enforcement agency by forcing its attorneys to help fabricate evidence of electoral fraud — and launch an investigation of the bogus claim — former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and two of his deputies, Richard Donoghue and Steven Engel, resisted. That perplexed Trump.
“Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen,” was Trump’s guidance to the lawyers, according to Donoghue’s testimony. But a lower-level Justice Department lawyer, Jeffrey Clark, was eager to do Trump’s bidding (apparently in exchange for Trump naming him attorney general). What made Clark so pliable?
Clark was “willing to ignore the facts” and do whatever Trump “wanted him to do, including overthrowing a free and fair democratic election,” said Representative Adam Kinzinger, a Republican member of the January 6 committee. (Federal law enforcement agents raided Clark’s home and led him out of the house in his pajamas, so more evidence of his intentions might be forthcoming.)
But Clark’s behaviour has a broader lesson. It’s evidence of Trump’s peculiar magnetism for grifters — and a reminder of the kind of corruption that will return to the White House if he isn’t held accountable for his coup attempt and finds a path back to the Oval Office in 2024.
For most of his 76 years, Trump has attracted operators, wannabes and seemingly strait-laced people who, once they enter his orbit, become unusually craven. It happened when he was an aspiring real estate mogul, when he was a reality-TV celebrity and, with much greater and lasting consequence, when he was president.
Michael Cohen, a former Trump lawyer and enforcer, is someone who well understands Trump as a manipulator. He is familiar with the triggers that Trump is able to pull when he so desires. When Cohen was asked about what lessons he drew from the congressional hearing — and what life is like as a Trump co-dependent, he said this. “I believe that everyone in Trump’s inner circle are all fundamentally missing something in their lives. For me, I had just come off a series of health issues when I was asked to join the Trump Organization. I had missed the excitement,” Cohen said. “There’s an excitement in being around the celebrity of Donald Trump. He has a great ability to make those around him feel that they’re part of that moment — even if it’s not for a good thing.”
“It’s intoxicating,” he continued. “Until things go bad with Trump, then they go really bad. Ultimately, those who were his inner circle all end up having their lives turned upside down. And for what, for who?”
Cohen said he was merely doing what he was told. “Trump doesn’t make requests of people. He gives orders,” he said. “To refuse the task as directed by Trump would result in an immediate termination.” Of course, the White House is a far larger and more powerful stage than the Trump Organization, he acknowledged. “Nevertheless, it was a similar dynamic.”

—Bloomberg