When women started telling their stories of sexual harassment and assault by Harvey Weinstein, many talked about the fear they had of him.
Likewise, some journalists spoke of the pressure the powerful film executive had applied on them or their bosses to quash reports of his misconduct.Now a new report by Ronan Farrow, published Monday evening in The New Yorker, shows that Weinstein hired “an army of spies” to investigate the women who were considering speaking out and the journalists who were digging into the allegations.
Though Farrow lays out the details plainly, it still reads like an espionage thriller. It involves multiple “international high-level corporate intelligence firms, using very aggressive tactics,” Farrow told NPR.
One firm’s tactics included “targeting women, targeting journalists,” Farrow said. “Showing up in their lives using fake identities. Using fake companies as a front. This was detailed, this was aggressive, and according to the women I spoke to — this was terrifying.”
According to Farrow’s reporting, this is the plot:
Last fall, Weinstein began hiring private security firms to collect information on the women who might speak out against him. One firm was Kroll, a major corporate intelligence firm. Another was Black Cube, a much newer company founded by two former Israeli intelligence officers, Dan Zorella and Avi Yanus, and which touts its staff of “veterans of elite units” from Israeli intelligence.
Black Cube was hired by Weinstein’s lawyer, David Boies. Boies is well-known attorney: he represented Al Gore in the disputed 2000 presidential election, and he fought California’s ban on same-sex marriage. He has also provided legal counsel to The New York Times in three matters over the last decade.
That last part is problematic because his law firm, Boies Schiller Flexner, hired Black Cube to accomplish two objectives. One was to learn the contents of a book – a forthcoming memoir by actress Rose McGowan – that “includes harmful negative information” about Weinstein. The other was to provide intelligence that would help Weinstein stop the Times from publishing a negative article about him.
That would be this article, published in the Times on October 5. Weinstein was fired from his company three days later.
Farrow obtained the contract between the law firm and Black Cube, which lays out some details of the deal. A key part of the mission was an agent known as “Anna,” who managed to meet and befriend McGowan, who says Weinstein assaulted her. Anna told McGowan her name was Diana Filip, an advocate for women’s empowerment at a London-based wealth management firm.
But Anna and Diana Filip are both aliases for a former Israeli Defense Force officer,…
The post Report: Weinstein Hired Agents To Investigate And Suppress Accusations Against Him appeared first on FeedBox.