The Daily - Keeping Harvey Weinstein’s Secrets, Part 1: Lisa Bloom

Episode Date: September 18, 2019

Last week, our colleagues Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey published a book documenting their investigation of Harvey Weinstein. In writing it, they discovered information about two feminist icons — Gloria Allred and her daughter, Lisa Bloom — that raises questions about their legacies and the legal system in which they’ve worked. Today, we look at the role of Ms. Bloom, a lawyer who represented Mr. Weinstein. Guests: Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, investigative reporters for The New York Times and the authors of “She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement.” For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading: New reporting in “She Said” shows how some figures who have presented themselves as allies of victims have helped maintain their silence — and, in some cases, profited from it.Read more about Ms. Bloom’s involvement in the Weinstein case.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. sexual harassment claims against him. This morning, two more women have come forward accusing media... Harvey Weinstein, out of his own company, over sexual harassment... So, before all that, in the summer of 2017, weeks into my joining Jodi on the Harvey Weinstein investigation, we were stuck. Today on The Daily, my colleagues, Megan Toohey and Jodi Kantor.

Like so many other reporters who had tried and failed to report on Weinstein, we were hitting roadblock after roadblock. People wouldn't return our calls. We couldn't find any records or documents. There were so many hints and indications that there was a story there, but we were just really having a hard time figuring out how to crack it open. It really seemed like Harvey Weinstein had just been a master in covering his tracks. So in the midst of all of these challenges and frustrations, Harvey Weinstein had just been a master in covering his tracks. So in the midst of all of these challenges and frustrations, I decide that I'm going to call Gloria Allred.

We don't think that our daughters should have to trade sexual favors in order to get a raise. Gloria Allred. Sir, I frankly feel that I have a moral duty to speak out that I should. Calls herself the most famous woman attorney practicing law. And I think that action, if it were not by a celebrity, would be condemned, would be criticized, and would be investigated. And she is famous. Supporters call her a feminist avenger. She was my advocate.

I feel that it's my commitment, my total commitment to making social change. She's probably the most visible victims' rights advocate in the country. Now enters Gloria Allred, who says that they are entitled to equal services and privileges. social change. She's probably the most visible victims' rights advocate in the country. Now enters Gloria Allred, who says that they are entitled to equal services and privileges. She has been at the forefront of fighting for women's issue after women's issue. Women's contributions have not been commemorated on Memorial Day. For decades. This case is a class action on behalf of all females. You know, whether it's abortion rights or child support rights. She sued a department store for charging women more for alterations than men.

And by far her most visible work. Thank you for coming today. I'm attorney Gloria Allred. Has been fighting on behalf of women who have been victims of sexual harassment and sexual assault by powerful men. Tomorrow, Bill Cosby will perform his far-from-finished tour in Atlanta, Georgia. He is performing despite the fact that more than 40 women have publicly accused him of drugging and sexually assaulting them. No, you name it. Like, you name a case with a high-profile man alleged of sexual harassment or sexual assault.

There was no one else to contact. She understands. She's experienced. She does it every day in her work. You can almost guarantee that Gloria Allred was part of that. Justice is long overdue for these brave women, and they will be silent no more. They will be silent no more. So I reach out to her thinking, this is somebody who knows this landscape and may be able to help me figure it out. But when we finally connected by phone,

the call was actually pretty brief and actually pretty disappointing. You know, to be fair, I didn't actually provide her with a lot of information to help inform the phone call. You know, I didn't tell her one of the key things, which was that it was Harvey Weinstein we were investigating. And that's because of this email that Jodi had just gotten. So just a few weeks before Megan and Gloria spoke on the phone, I was on a flight to LA. I was trying to get more people to talk to me about Weinstein. It was pretty tough going. I was writing solo on the story at that point. And I'm spending a lot

of days just calling people and not getting any answers. So many people were just afraid to speak. And so I'm sitting there on the flight, I'm on the Wi-Fi, and lo and behold, this email lands and it's from Lisa Bloom. And she says, I'd like to speak with you briefly about a story you're working on. Do you have time for a phone call?

Too often we are still second-class citizens. And I got really excited because I do women's rights cases. I see this every day. Lisa Bloom is Gloria Allred's daughter. And to all of the victims I've represented in high-profile cases, they stand taller afterwards. They feel very good about speaking their truth. And she was second only to Gloria in her reputation as a fighter for women.

So if you are victimized, if you are treated differently, I hope you will stand up for your rights. That summer, the two of them would be profiled in W Magazine together. There's this beautiful picture of them together looking strong. And the headline says, Gloria Allred and Lisa Bloom are the defenders of women in 2017. We will find you, come after you, and bring you to justice to the fullest extent possible. You have been warned. So what are you thinking at this point? I thought, this is amazing. She knows about Weinstein victims, and she's calling to help.

So I wrote back, and I said, I'm actually on my way to L.A. right now. Can I stop by your office tomorrow? And then I forwarded the email to our colleague, Emily Steele, because Emily had broken open the Bill O'Reilly story and I knew that Lisa Bloom had represented one of the alleged victims. So within minutes, an email comes back from Emily and she says, stop. I have to call you. So what Emily told me once I landed was that Lisa Bloom had

tweeted very excitedly a few months before, Harvey Weinstein and Jay-Z are making a movie out of my book, Suspicion Nation. Lisa Bloom was actually in business with Harvey Weinstein. So once Emily said that, I knew that Lisa Bloom wasn't contacting me to help with the story. Instead, she was working with Harvey Weinstein. So Megan, this is why, despite hoping that Gloria would be a good lead, you were hesitant to tell her what you were working on. I mean, her daughter was working with the subject of your investigation.

Exactly. So this was just the beginning of a realization. We had at first thought that these two attorneys, this mother and daughter, would be keys that could help us unlock the Weinstein story. But over time, we would learn that in their own separate ways, they actually helped keep it secret. Last week, Megan and Jodi published a book, she said, documenting their investigation of Harvey Weinstein. In writing it, they discovered new information about two feminist icons that raises questions about their legacies

and about the legal system in which they work. Today, part one, Lisa Bloom. It's Wednesday, September 18th. So what do we now know about the role of Lisa Bloom in the Harvey Weinstein story? Well, what we've now realized is that the moment that Lisa Bloom called Jodi Kantor in the summer of 2017, she had already been working with Harvey Weinstein for months. crossed over to the other side at a rate of $895 an hour to help this powerful producer seek to evade scrutiny and conceal his alleged predatory behavior. And how do you know that? Well, we know that because after we published that first Weinstein story,

we kept reporting. And we have since obtained these confidential records that spell out all of the various things that Lisa Bloom did in fact do for Weinstein. There were the billing records in which she gives an hour-by-hour accounting of the various things that she did on his behalf. We also obtained this document, which looking back now really was a blueprint for the various tactics that she was going to use to try to keep everything hidden. And tell us about that document. That document is basically Lisa Bloom's job audition memo for what she was willing to do for Harvey Weinstein. It appears that he wanted a powerful woman by his side, one with a very public reputation for protecting victims. Which is what Lisa Bloom has.

Exactly. Can I just read it to you? Yeah. Okay. I'll read some and then I'm going to beat back allegations by Rose McGowan, the actress against Weinstein. Now, at that point, McGowan had tweeted that a producer had raped her, and people thought it was Weinstein, but Rose hadn't named him yet. But Weinstein clearly felt very threatened by this, and they had had some sort of conversation. And then what Lisa Bloom does is she writes what's essentially a roadmap for

Harvey Weinstein of how she is going to manipulate and smear in order to discredit Rose McGowan. Harvey, it was a treat to speak to you today, though yes, we'd all prefer better circumstances. I've spent the rest of the day reading Jack and Sarah's thorough reports about Rose. By the way, those are private investigators. Who truly comes across as a disturbed, pathological liar, and also your former assistant, who seems to be less of a concern. I also read through a lot of Rose's Twitter feed to get a sense of her and watched her short film, Dawn. I'm no film critic, but I found it dreadful.

But telling as to who Rose is, boy meets girl, girl trusts boy, boy murders girl, all men suck, the end. I feel equipped to help you against the Roses of the world

because I have represented so many of them. They start out as impressive, bold women, but the more one presses for evidence, the weaknesses and lies are revealed. She doesn't seem to have much going on these days except her rapidly escalating identity as a feminist warrior, which seems to be entirely based on her online rants. For her to keep her rose army following, she must continue ramping up the outrageousness of her diatribes. Clearly, she must be stopped in her ridiculous, defamatory attacks on you. She's dangerous. You're right to

be concerned. Options after my initial read, which I can flesh out on our next call. Number one, initiating friendly contact with her through me or other good intermediary. And after establishing a relationship, work out a win-win. Key question, what does she want? To direct, it appears? Number two, counter-ops. Online campaign to push back and call her out as a pathological liar. A few well-placed articles now will go a long way if things blow up for us down the line. We can place an article re her becoming increasingly unglued so that when someone Googles her, this is what pops up and she is discredited. We have all the facts based on publicly available information. This can begin simultaneous with number one. Number three, cease and desist letter

from me, warning her of the violation of agreement with you. Risk. She poses the letter online, generating heat and backlash. Sarah, she's CCing Sarah, the private investigator. I need to see the agreement, please.

She's talking about a settlement that Harvey Weinstein paid to Rose McGowan in the 90s following the alleged rape. So she's talking about strategies to keep the payment that he made to her secret. Number four, you and I come out publicly in a preemptive interview where you talk about evolving on women's issues prompted by death of your mother and maybe nasty, unfounded, hurtful rumors about you. This will be headline grabbing

if you express genuine contrition for anyone who you hurt, while emphasizing it was always adult consensual behavior. You thought that was enough at the time, but now realize it's more nuanced, that a power imbalance means something, etc. You reached out to me to help understand rapidly evolving social mores around sexual misconduct because you are a good and decent person, as evidenced by your life's work making films on important social issues and extremely generous philanthropy. Example, Charlie Sheen. As women were set to come out against him re-HIV status, he did a Today Show interview recently where he came out with it himself, receiving massive praise. I represented a few of the women, and their stories were largely drowned out by his interview and the love he got for it.

It is so key from a reputation management standpoint to be the first to tell the story. I strongly recommend this. If you agree, I'd like to come out and meet with you to go over the story in some detail. So this is done for maximum effectiveness. You should be the hero of the story, not the villain. This is very doable. Hmm. Number five, start the Weinstein Foundation, focusing on gender equality in film.

Or establish the Weinstein Standards, which seek to have one-third of films directed by women or written by women. to have one-third of films directed by women or written by women or passing the Bechdel test, two named female characters talk to each other about something besides a man, whatever. Announce you will immediately raise standards, read gender parity in very specific ways on all films under your control. Announce partnership with Geena Davis' group

that works for gender equality in film, for example, by mandating that half of all extras in crowd scenes will be female. You get the idea. These details can be worked out, but the point is you decide to be a leader and raise the bar in a concrete, headline-grabbing way. Number six, positive reputation management. I googled your name and a few obnoxious articles pop up. I work with the leading reputation management company that can backlink to the positive articles, which prevents negative pieces from ranking well on Google. Your first page of Google is key as 95% never go beyond the first Google page. Let's improve this. Easy to do. This should happen simultaneously with other

option. And then she ends, a reminder, would you please connect me with David Boies so that I can get retained? David Boies is one of the attorneys who has worked most closely with Weinstein going back 15 years as he's worked to conceal the allegations against him. Also, given that your emails with the Clinton campaign were hacked recently, I recommend you set up a secure new email account for emails with this team. We shouldn't be emailing on these sensitive matters to your company email, as your IT people may have access. Thanks, and really honored to be brought into this team. Talk tomorrow. Best, Lisa Bloom.

Wow. We'll be right back. So what do you make of this memo? She's saying, I'm going to use my experience representing vulnerable women to help you instead. To intimidate vulnerable women. Exactly. I think she's saying, I'm going to take all of my experience working on the behalf of victims and use that on your behalf to work against them. and use that on your behalf to work against them. I also, you know, I'm going to ask this as a question because we don't have Lisa Bloom here and I don't know the answer,

but I think it raises questions about her work generally beyond Rose McGowan because it's this line, they start out as impressive, bold women, but the more one presses for evidence, the weaknesses and lies are revealed. What does that mean? Does that mean that she hasn't believed her clients over the years? And what about the billing records that you found? What do those show? Well, I'm looking right now through her billing records, and it's just this sort of day-by-day, hour-by-hour accounting of what she did for Harvey Weinstein, her team as

well. That's what lawyers do. They send these really detailed bills. So let's just take a couple of examples. These records say things like 4-30-17 phone call re-reputation management issue, which actually is one of the phrases that was just used in that memo and really suggests that she's following up on the things that she promised to do. She's managing Harvey Weinstein's reputation. Exactly. 6-28-17, review investigator research on RM.

So RM is Rose McGowan. So they're digging around Rose McGowan. That's what it sounds like. And then my own name is in there. Meeting with Harvey, reach out to Jodi Cantor. Research Jodi Cantor. Two hours. So it turns out that before she called me, she was doing all of this research on me.

So prepping for a conversation with you at, I think you said the rate was $8.95. It's a $1,600 job. She had already been paid a $50,000 retainer, and then she was paid $895 after that. 7-12, this is important. Prepare for meeting with Anna. Call with Harvey. Follow up with Ronan. So Anna is a fake name for a paid Israeli private spy who Weinstein is employing at this point to try to dupe reporters and sources and get information from them. And remember that this is all in her own hand.

These are her billing records, so it looks like she was very deeply involved. Follow-up with Ronan, that, of course, is Ronan Farrow. Of the New Yorker magazine. Yes, exactly, who was working on a very similar investigation to ours at the same time. Review Rose PI reports. PI, private investigator.

Let's see what else. 9-7, email. Emails re-NBC. Ronan's conflict. Research journalist ethics. So that looks like they're preparing to go to war against Ronan Farrow. And by the way, I'm reading a fraction of the entries on this document to you. It's very long. And a lot of what she's describing in these billing records was invisible to us in

the beginning of our investigation. We had no idea of what actual work she was doing for him. But as the billing records reached their completion, we are able to see activity that was in fact visible to us in that final stretch as Lisa Bloom flew to New York to be by Weinstein's side in the final days as he was working to beat back our investigation. She bills him for this pretty remarkable meeting that we had at the New York Times. There was a moment as we were working to get to the finish line where Harvey Weinstein basically barged into the New York Times

with Lisa Bloom and a couple other lawyers by his side demanding an off-the-record meeting. And Lisa Bloom had in her hands folders that included pictures of Rose McGowan and Ashley Judd and friendly poses with Weinstein in an effort to undermine and smear the accusers. So basically, you can see the reality that more and more of her time is going towards trying to stop the publication of your investigation, that that's really becoming the bulk of her work. Exactly. And then after all those months, all those efforts, she finally faces the music and recognizes that this story is going to run,

and there's nothing that her client can do to stop it. And it appears to have been 11.38 p.m. the night before our story ran. She sends an email to Weinstein and some of his other attorneys acknowledging that they had not succeeded in killing the Time story. And basically advising that at this point her new pitch is that Weinstein should acknowledge that he had engaged in sexual harassment. Express remorse and promise to do better. And then the second part of her pitch is that she will come in with a statement and that she will actually testify on his behalf. She is pitching a statement in which she says, as a woman's rights advocate, I have been blunt with Harvey, and he has listened to me. I have told him that times have changed.

It is 2017, and he needs to evolve to a higher standard. I have found Harvey to be refreshingly candid and receptive to my message. He has acknowledged mistakes he has made, and as we work together on a project bringing my book to the screen, he has always been respectful towards me. And the next day, in the hour before we published our story, Lisa Bloom sent us basically that statement. But now that I look at it again after all this time, part of what's interesting is the link between this and that very first audition memo she laid out for Weinstein. Like she's trying to describe him trying to become a better person and treat women more respectfully.

She says, he has been working on a major foundation with USC with one of the largest grants for female directors, which started well over a year ago. So that tracks exactly what the plan she had laid out for him. She's executing, what is it, tactic number four. So there we are, moments from publishing the story, and the role of Lisa Bloom is finally coming into focus. Within a week, we'd realize that her mother, Gloria Allred, had also played a surprising role. Lisa Bloom declined to be interviewed for this episode. On tomorrow's Daily, part two, Gloria Allred.

We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. The Times reports that the Trump administration plans to revoke California's authority to set stricter car emission standards than the federal government in an attempt to prevent the state from disrupting the president's plans to roll back environmental regulations. California rules would require an average fuel economy of nearly 55 miles per gallon by 2025, while a Trump rule would lower the requirement to about 37 miles per gallon. In response, California vowed to fight

the move in court, a reaction the White House seemed to anticipate. The Times reports that the Trump administration wants any legal fight to unfold before 2020 in case a Democrat is elected and chooses

not to defend the revocation in court. And on Wednesday morning, Israel's election was still too close to call, with neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his rival, the former army chief Benny Gantz, commanding enough support to form a majority coalition. The uncertain outcome was a blow to Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister,

whose failure to form a government back in May triggered Tuesday's election. The full results are expected later on Wednesday. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.