The Mob Boss Tactic Trump Uses to Keep People From Flipping
Elie Honig, prosecutor and author of ‘Untouchable,’ joins The New Abnormal podcast to talk through all the ways Trump is just like a mob boss, and how it’s kept him free.
Photo Illustration by Erin O'Flynn/The Daily Beast/Reuters
When former federal and state prosecutor Elie Honig says Donald Trump acts just like a mob boss, he’s not exaggerating.
“It’s become quite common to hear people say, ‘oh, Trump, he acts like a mob boss.’ All due respect to people who say that, they don’t always know what they’re talking about,” Honig tells Andy Levy, co-host of The New Abnormal podcast on this bonus episode. “They’re basically [referencing films like] Goodfellas or The Godfather. The Sopranos.”
“I spent six of my eight years at the Southern District of New York prosecuting the actual mob,” he says. According to the Untouchable: How Powerful People Get Away With It author, Trump isn’t similar to real-life mob bosses, he’s exactly like them.
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Honig explains that there’s one trick in particular that bosses use on those closely involved in their crimes that makes it “harder for those people to flip.”
He also shares in this episode another mob boss tactic that has helped Trump avoid charges, at least the ones relating to his former fixer Michael Cohen.
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“Michael Cohen said, ‘you know, Donald never told me, ‘Hey, I need you to lie about Moscow for me.’ Cohen just says it was understood. ‘He called me in, he said, ‘I know you’re testifying. Of course, you know what to do.’ That kind of thing. And that is completely out of the mob playbook,” adds Honig.
He and Andy also talk about the “rule” that has saved Trump from indictment—“This policy saved Donald Trump’s hide over and over again. Nobody has ever benefited from it like he has”— as well as the prosecutor who gave the Trump children, and Harvey Weinstein, a free pass.
Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.
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