As he squeezes concessions, cash and even part government ownership from some of America’s most prominent entities, President Donald Trump is channeling a deceased union thug to whom he himself often bent a knee.

Trump was 33 in 1979 when John Cody, the mob-linked president of Local 282 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, called for a citywide strike in New York. The lone job site that remained open was that of Trump Tower. And whatever Cody may have received in return, a beautiful Texas divorcee of whom he was very fond ended up with two triplex apartments directly below Trump’s penthouse.

The divorcee was Austrian-born Verina Hixon. Cody stayed in her new residence often enough to have qualified as Trump’s downstairs neighbor. Cody informed Trump that Hixon wanted a swimming pool in one of her apartments. Trump grumbled at something the architects had not envisioned, but proceeded to make whatever structural alterations were necessary.

As summarized by his son, Michael Cody, the union boss operated with a simple principle.

“It’s, ‘I can say whatever I want and do whatever I want… and you’re gonna have to listen to me, or else there’s consequences,’” the son told the Daily Beast on Wednesday.

That approach to power is all too familiar for people who have been following Trump’s current efforts to implement policy through extortion. But of Trump in those earlier days, Cody’s son said, “I don’t think he was that way before, you know, when he was just starting out, but I think he learned that.”

Michael Cody added, “My father was tough. He was tough and he wasn’t nice. I almost think sometimes Trump got lessons from my father.”

One lesson came when Trump’s then wife, Ivana,........

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