Harvey Weinstein Threw Birthday Party For Hillary, Actor Reveals Sick Thing He Did There

Harvey Weinstein hired private spies to silence accusers, journalists, report says Weinstein accuser says spy allegations are 'terrifying' Harvey Weinstein scandal: Report says he hired spies to investigate accusers, journalists Harvey Weinstein reportedly enlisted "army of spies" to silence accusers Harvey Weinstein Hired Private Investigators, Former Spies to Discredit Accusers, Journalists Report says Harvey Weinstein paid ex-spies, private detectives to find dirt on accusers and journalists Just weeks after he helped open the flood gates on Harvey Weinstein, investigative reporter Ronan Farrow promised another blockbuster. In a Friday appearance on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” Farrow said he had been working on a follow-up to his explosive New Yorker article detailing allegations that the Hollywood film mogul had sexually harassed or assaulted 13 women. His new piece, he told Colbert, would explore the “machine that was so instrumental in keeping this quiet as long as it was quiet.” On Monday, Farrow delivered. In a 5,300-word report for the magazine, titled “Harvey Weinstein’s Army of Spies,” he described a shadowy and elaborate intelligence operation commissioned by Weinstein to silence his accusers and suppress stories about his alleged serial abuse of actresses and other women. Actress Rose McGowan, who ultimately accused Weinstein of rape, was among those who said she was targeted by Weinstein’s cadre of private investigators. [Putin crony sides with Harvey Weinstein, says America is too uptight] Starting last fall, Farrow reported, Weinstein hired private security firms to gather information on McGowan and other women, as well as several journalists looking into his conduct. One of the companies was Kroll, the corporate investigations and risk consulting firm based in Manhattan. The other was Black Cube, a Tel Aviv-based intelligence firm whose leaders include former officers of Mossad, Israel’s spy agency. The article says Weinstein tried to hide the effort by routing contracts with the firms through his lawyers, including the legendary litigator David Boies, who, among other things, represented Al Gore in litigation over the 2000 presidential election and joined with lawyer Theodore Olson to get the Supreme Court to overturn California’s ban on same-sex marriage. By doing so, the investigations could conceivably be protected by attorney-client privilege. The New York Times first reported in early October that Weinstein faced sexual harassment and assault allegations stretching back nearly three decades and had reached at least eight settlements with women. Days later, the New Yorker ran Farrow’s first story, which described, among other things, conversations with three women who claimed to have been raped by Weinstein. Dozens of other women have since come forward with similar claims. Farrow’s story suggests that Weinstein’s intelligence-gathering operation was carried out in large part by Black Cube. The story detailed how an agent from the firm, posing as an executive of a wealth management company, had duped McGowan into meeting with her on several occasions. The woman, who called herself Diana Filip, said she was starting a women’s advocacy group and asked McGowan to help launch it, according to Farrow. In reality, the woman was a former officer in the Israeli Defense Forces, Farrow wrote, citing anonymous sources. During their meetings, the woman appeared to have surreptitiously recorded McGowan and turned over more than 100 pages of transcripts to Weinstein. Weinstein’s spokesperson denied the claim. Farrow reported that the same woman contacted other reporters investigating Weinstein but identified herself as “Anna.” Cellphone numbers the woman provided McGowan have since been disconnected, and a website for the woman’s purported wealth management firm has gone dark, Farrow reported. By Farrow’s account, Weinstein’s intelligence operation used similar tactics. According to the New Yorker story, Black Cube signed a contract agreeing to “provide intelligence which will help the Client’s efforts to completely stop the publication of a new negative article in a leading N.Y. newspaper” and to “obtain additional content of a book which currently being written and includes harmful negative information on and about the Client.” The client was identified as Weinstein in multiple documents; the newspaper was the Times; and the book was “Brave,” a forthcoming memoir by McGowan, Farrow reported.