An explosive report today in the New Yorker has detailed how Harvey Weinstein enlisted the help of Israeli intelligence agencies to spy on his accusers and keep tabs on reporters investigating the story.
Before Weinstein’s carefully constructed world came unraveling before him, he had hired several agencies including Black Cube – a firm run by former Mossad agents – to collect information on his accusers, including actress Rose McGowan.
One undercover agent the firm employed posed as a woman’s rights activist, who met with McGowan to extract details about her upcoming book (which will be published in January).
The woman gave the name Diana Filip, meeting with McGowan on a number of occasions. She pretended to be an executive at a London-based wealth management firm called Reuben Capital Partners, initially getting in contact about a speaking engagement. After the New Yorker published its piece about Weinstein, ‘Diana’ texted McGowan: “Hi love, how are you feeling?… Just wanted to tell you how brave I think you are xx.”
But as journalist Ronan Farrow writes:
In fact, “Diana Filip” was an alias for a former officer in the Israeli Defense Forces who originally hailed from Eastern Europe and was working for Black Cube, according to three individuals with knowledge of the situation. When I sent McGowan photos of the Black Cube agent, she recognised her instantly. “Oh my God,” she wrote back. “Reuben Capital. Diana Filip. No fucking way.”
And it’s just one example in a lengthy, detailed and explosive report as to how Weinstein used his considerable wealth and power to try and ensure details of his behaviour never became public knowledge. (‘Reuben Capital’ was a fake, btw, and the website disappeared a short while ago.)
Others examples include the employee who was tricked into compiling a list of former employees, the investigative journalist hired by Black Cube to source info about several women (including McGowan and actress Annabella Sciorra, another Weinstein accuser), and an executive from the publisher of the National Enquirer actually obtaining and sharing audio with Weinstein to try and discredit McGowan.
“Every paragraph of this story is wilder than the one before it,” wrote Daily Beast reporter Kevin Fallon.
“I gasped at Ronan Farrow’s latest on Harvey Weinstein all the way to the end,” wrote BuzzFeed News reporter Kate Aurthur, while writer Jake Fogelnest described it as a cross between iconic texts about power and manipulation Gaslight, Spotlight, and All The President’s Men.
The latest @RonanFarrow in the @NewYorker is a nuclear bomb. Anyone who ever asked @rosemcgowan or @AsiaArgento
“Why keep quiet?” FU— Anthony Bourdain (@Bourdain) November 7, 2017
Farrow himself said it was the “craziest story I’ve ever reported, and a rare professional experience that made me fear for my safety (even including time in Afghanistan).”
It also detailed the night before the New York Times story broke, which started this whole chain of events.
[Former employee Pamela] Lubell told me that hours before the first Times story broke, on October 5th, Weinstein summoned her, Doyle Chambers, and others on his team, including the attorney Lisa Bloom, who has since resigned, to his office. “He was in a panic,” Lubell recalled. “He starts screaming, ‘Get so-and-so on the phone.’ ” After the story was published, the team scrambled to respond to it. Bloom and others pored over pictures that, like the ones featured in the Kroll e-mails, showed ongoing contact between Weinstein and women who made allegations. “He was screaming at us, ‘Send these to the board members,’ ” Lubell recalled. She e-mailed the photographs to the board ahead of the crisis meeting at which Weinstein’s position at his company began unravelling.
We know what happens next: Weinstein was fired, left by his wife, kicked out of the Producers Guild of America, and saw his entire life and achievements crumble around him. The NYPD investigating a rape allegation said they have enough to charge him. But goddamn, it’s scary to see how close this story came to never coming out at all.
https://twitter.com/rosemcgowan/status/927730853425401857
