Sidney Blumenthal

Sidney Blumenthal was a senior adviser to Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001. The second volume of his Life of Lincoln, Wrestling with His Angel 1849-56, will be published in May.

Reckoning with Trump means descending into the place that made him. What he represents, above all, is the triumph of an underworld of predators, hustlers, mobsters, clubhouse politicians and tabloid sleaze that festered in a corner of New York City; a vindication of his mentor, the Mafia lawyer Roy Cohn, a figure unknown to most Trump supporters.

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