After yesterday’s bombshell report in the New Yorker which exposed the staggering spy operation Harvey Weinstein used to keep tabs on accusers and journalists, the New York Times has fired a lawyer who reportedly helped Weinstein in said spying efforts.
According to the New Yorker’s report, 71-year-old David Boies helped Weinstein execute a contract with a private investigation firm which Weinstein hired to prevent a negative article being published in the New York Times. Boies had also done work for the Times – assisting with three cases over the past 10 years, including a libel case.
That private investigation firm utilised unsavoury tactics in protecting Weinstein’s rep – including digging up dirt on accuser Rose McGowan, and lying to journalists in order to obtain intel.
So, to put it simply, Boies was helping to undermine the New York Times’ reporting while ostensibly working with the paper on other matters. In a statement published as part of their article on the matter, the Times condemned Boies:
We never contemplated that the law firm would contract with an intelligence firm to conduct a secret spying operation aimed at our reporting and our reporters. Such an operation is reprehensible.
For his part, Boies says that he had no part in hiring Black Cube, the private investigation firm. He does admit that he helped Weinstein, who is facing multiple allegations of nonconsensual sex, which he says he now regrets. “It was not thought through, and that was my mistake,” he told the Times.
“In retrospect, we should not have gotten involved in the billing dispute,” he continued. “In the case of Harvey Weinstein, there is a lot of information that I didn’t have.”
For the record, the contract he helped draft between Weinstein and Black Cube explicitly said that the relationship was intended to “stop publication of a new negative article in a leading NY newspaper.” (A full copy of the contract is visible on the New Yorker’s website, if you want a look.)
As you might imagine, the relationship between Boies’ law firm and the Times is now kaputt. This rabbit hole goes pretty deep, though.
