At first glance, Roy Cohn, Stephen Miller and Emil Bove share an eerie resemblance, though they hail from distinct eras of American dysfunction.
Cohn was a McCarthy-era fixer and Manhattan attorney who mentored the young Donald Trump then died in disgrace. Miller is Trump’s deputy White House chief of staff, to some his “prime minister,” to all the face and voice of Trump’s tyranny. Bove is now a federal judge, but before that was Trump’s legal counsel while Trump was indicted again and again. Oh, how I long for those days.
Different résumés, yes. But the same moral rot behind the same vicious visage.
They are fraternal, tyrannical triplets. They look alike. They speak alike. They operate alike. And most importantly, they thrive for the same reason: Donald Trump, who is, in the words of South Park, “f—ing Satan,” likes demonic despotic dudes, and asks for nothing more.
The vile Cohn was Trump’s most important early influence, not because he taught him the law, but because he taught him how to abuse it, evade it, and weaponize it against anyone in the way.
Cohn’s worldview was brutally simple: never apologize, never admit error, always counterattack harder. Appeal, appeal, appeal, until justice cries “uncle.” He had a viper tongue and a monstrous leer.
To Cohn, truth was irrelevant, institutions were weapons to be bent or broken, and loyalty to scumbags mattered more than reverence for legal scholars.
Roy Cohn advises Sen. Joseph McCarthy in 1953. Picture: Los Angeles Times/Wiki Commons.
Like a fly to feces, Trump absorbed this crock of crap. In the decades since, he has surrounded himself with similar people. If Trump is the water pump, Bove and Miller are the outhouse.
Miller and Bove are near-Cohn clones, Cohn-esque pinheads with the same skull, ego, brain, and heart. Cohn preached brute force and illegality in the courtroom. Now Bove practices it while Miller reimagines it through Trump’s immigration and foreign policies, wielding cruelty as part of a 21st-century Lebensraum doctrine.
Trump selects a very specific enforcer archetype: someone who treats politics as destruction, law as an irrelevance, morality as a waste of time. These guys are willing to be hated, feared, and blamed. In fact, those traits aren’t flaws. They’re prerequisites. Miller and Bove crave insolence.
In a normal presidency, these qualities would be blasphemous, jail-inducing and worthy of impeachment. In Trump’s pigpen, they’re just mud to roll around in.
Miller’s role is not merely to craft immigration policy. It is to function as shock-and-awe made flesh. Miller says the quiet parts loud, proposes the harshest version of every policy, and luxuriates in the backlash.
Cruelty is not a byproduct. It is the point of Miller’s existence. While some men obsess over their appearance — clearly not Miller’s concern — he obsesses over wickedness. He feeds Trump’s “rule the world” fantasies and sermonizes imperialism in unblinking media appearances.
Cohn played the same ruthless role. He intimidated judges, threatened reporters, and crossed lines others would not approach. Cohn understood that power depends less on legality than on the willingness to violate norms, fast and furious, before anyone can catch up.
And then there’s Evil — sorry, Emil — Bove. He fits Trump’s corrosive mold perfectly. His value lies in being, as Trump would say, a “sleazebag” attorney. He pushed conspiracy theories disguised as legal arguments to their absolute breaking point. He taunted judges, dared courts to challenge Trump, and lied in depositions and in open court — under oath — just like his client.
Now, astonishingly, he’s a federal judge.
He is plainly, unequivocally unqualified. His entire career showcases the traits the position demands one not have: belligerence, partisanship, a staggering lack of judicial temperament.
A federal judge is supposed to be an independent arbiter, guided by restraint, humility, and respect for the rule of law. Bove laughs at such quaint notions. He is about loyalty and aggression. Always and forever. He disdains the norms that protect judicial independence. The court has adjourned on his petulance and incompetence.
These bozos thrive because they lack honor, decency, humility, or, most glaringly, truth. Loyalty tests are endless. Media outrage is constant. Legal jeopardy is routine. In this ecosystem, they become role models. Like robots, they churn out their own replacements. The insidious Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s White House press secretary, is a Miller disciple.
Cohn ended up disbarred, dying alone, loathed and disgraced. But that was the 1980s. In this Trump era, Cohn would be basking at Mar-a-Lago. Miller is a hero to his MAGA minions. He boasts 1.6 million followers on X. Think about it. So many people hang on his every post, each packed with cruelty, fabrication, and garbage.
Emil Bove attends Manhattan criminal court in New York. JEENAH MOON/Pool via REUTERS
And Bove? He is Trump’s representative on the federal bench — which is, of course, illegal. But who cares? Bove attends Trump rallies and events, sparking ethics complaints. Critics argue such attendance violates the code of conduct for federal judges, which bars political activity and even the appearance of impropriety, especially so soon after confirmation and despite prior ethical concerns.
A watchdog group has formally asked the Third Circuit’s chief judge to investigate and potentially discipline Bove for placing partisan loyalty above judicial neutrality. Blah, blah, blah. All this protestation matters not, because Bove’s response to all of it is a big FU.
Even the aesthetic similarities between the three matter. The severe expressions, clipped speech, and utter lack of warmth project authority without empathy. These are badges of honor bestowed by their narcissist-in-chief.
The thread, and threat, of their inhumanity proves they are not aberrations. They are continuations. Roy Cohn didn’t disappear when he died. His ethos simply evolved, metastasizing into Stephen Miller and Emil Bove.
There were once the Three Stooges, whose slapstick and bawdiness prompted laughter. Cohn, Miller and Bove are Trump’s three stooges, but they aren’t eliciting laughter. They spur terror.
When cruelty, propaganda, and law enforcement align, comedy dies and horror begins.
- John Casey was most recently Senior Editor, The Advocate, and is a freelance opinion and feature story writer. Previously, he was a Capitol Hill press secretary, and spent 25 years in media and public relations in NYC. He is the co-author of LOVE: The Heroic Stories of Marriage Equality (Rizzoli, 2025), named by Oprah in her "Best 25 of 2025.”
