Thin-Skinned Cohan Attacks Stuart Taylor

Today author William D. Cohan appeared on the Diane Rehm show, on NPR. During the broadcast, Stuart Taylor called in to ask Cohan a couple of questions. [Update: the full transcript is now here.] Stuart prepared the resulting transcript below; I have some comments thereafter:

Stuart Taylor: Thank you Diane, and hello Mr. Cohan. I’ll try to be brief. I’ve written a book, I’m not disinterested but I am well informed. It’s called Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape. It strongly argues that the players were innocent. My coauthor is KC Johnson.

My question for Mr. Cohan is whether any of the three following three comments are wrong.

Number one, this book adds not a single piece of significant new evidence to that which convinced then-North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper and virtually all serious analysts by midnight [sic] 2007 that the lacrosse players were innocent of any sexual assault on anyone, . . .

Diane Rehm: Ok.

Stuart Taylor . . . unless one considers as new evidence Mr. Cohan’s stunningly credulous interviews with three far-from-credible participants in the drama -- Nifong, Crystal Mangum, . . . .

Diane Rehm: You’re going to have to be brief, Stuart

Stuart Taylor  . . . and Robert Steel. Lastly, what Mr. Cohan just said about being the first to get the report of the sexual assault nurse, Tara Levicy is clearly false.  Dozens of reporters including me have had it since 2006. Mr. Cohan could have found it prominently displayed in our book. Thank you.

Diane Rehm: All right.

William D. Cohan: Well, I guess Stuart Taylor, who wrote his book with KC Johnson in 2006, it was published in 2007, clearly does not want to take into account of the new information that has come out in terms of the police reports, in terms of yes, Tara Levicy’s report, obviously doesn’t care or want to hear what Mike Nifong would have to say, or Crystal Magnum, or Bob Steel.

Basically, I have tried to present all sides to this fairly and dispassionately, but the - the - the haters like Stuart Taylor don’t want anything to do with a fair and dispassionate assessment of this case. They are so wedded to their point of view of the fact that these kids were railroaded and were declared innocent and therefore must be innocent. They don’t care about the fact that Roy Cooper, the Attorney General of North Carolina, will not make his investigative material public. I’ve had to sue him in North Carolina under a Freedom of Information Act Request to try to get access to that information. He declined all my requests to be interviewed. If these kids are quote unquote so innocent why wouldn’t Roy Cooper be the first to talk to me and why wouldn’t he be the first to make his investigative material available publicly?

Comments:

This is an interesting exchange.

First, and most important: Cohan doesn’t answer Stuart’s first question—what’s the new evidence to corroborate his assertions that the people Mike Nifong targeted were not innocent; or what could be called Cohan’s “something-happened-but-I-won’t-you-what” thesis. It doesn’t take a Ph.D. to figure out why Cohan didn’t answer Stuart’s question.

Second: Cohan falsely asserts that Stuart “wrote his book with KC Johnson in 2006, it was published in 2007.” Cohan doesn’t explain how a book written in 2006 could have described events that occurred in 2007—unless he believes that Stuart and I are clairvoyant. In the event, the book was written over a several-month period in 2007; it was published (on an accelerated schedule) in the same year. It was revised and extended in late 2007 and early 2008, and a second (paperback) edition was published in 2008. It was extended in 2013 and a third edition was published late that year. I do not know why Cohan chose to falsely state that the book was written in 2006.

Third: Cohan’s claim about “Tara Levicy’s report” is false. As I notedbefore, the report was cited in the N&O, 60 Minutes, the New York Times, UPI, and at the blog; I believe that ABC’s Law & Justice Unit also had a copy. Perhaps other reporters did as well. I do not know why Scribner’s, in its publicity material, falsely asserted that Cohan’s book would be the first to reveal the Levicy report, or why Cohan today repeated the misleading claim.

Fourth: I have no idea what Cohan’s talking about regarding new “police reports.” Based on their reporting, it was clear that the N&O, 60 Minutes, Stuart and I, and likely ABC’s Law & Justice Unit all had access to the entire discovery file; the New York Times claimed that it had such access, although its reporting did not confirm the claim. Cohan’s book produces no evidence from previously unrevealed “police reports” advancing his “something happened” thesis.

Fifth: Stuart and I very much “want[ed] to hear” what Bob Steel had to say—that’s why Stuart interviewed him for the book, and why Stuart reached out to him again after Cohan launched his publicity crusade. Given that it was Cohan who misrepresented Steel’s beliefs, it appears that it’s Cohan who doesn’t want to hear what Steel had to say.

Sixth: I have been very interested in hearing what Nifong had to say—that’s why I’ve done several blog posts on it. Where I differ from Cohan is viewing a convicted liar as “quite credible” and uncritically accepting Nifong’s wild assertions.

Seventh: Cohan spends most of his response to Stuart on a filibuster complaining about North Carolina law, which (like the law of virtually every other state) does not consider police investigative files to be public records. Cohan has every right to spend his money filing as many lawsuits as he likes; but if he truly believes that all investigative files should be public records, why doesn’t he lobby Congress, or the various state legislatures, to create the change?

Eighth: I do not know why Cohan considers Stuart to be among “the haters.” That Cohan appears to equate a willingness to challenge his uncorroborated claims with hatred speaks volumes as to the mindset he has brought to this project.