« The explicit goal… »
When the dam finally broke and Harvey Weinstein’s — alleged — sordid sexual history became front-page news, it quickly became clear that Weinstein wasn’t going to go down alone.
Directors, actors, and friends who had “known enough” but hadn’t stopped Weinstein were called to the carpet — and not the red one.
But as more and more information came to light, the true depth of the depravity began to show…
A recent report from Ronan Farrow — published by The New Yorker — details just how far Weinstein was willing to go to hold onto his dirty little (open) secret:
Weinstein’s campaign to silence allegations included hiring undercover ex-Mossad agents to track women & reporters: https://t.co/lPJM0cPc5n
— Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) November 6,2017
Farrow’s report reveals that Weinstein employed a corporate intelligence firm (Kroll) and Black Cube, run by ex-Mossad agents and government intelligence agencies — with the express purpose of tracking and stifling any news stories that might expose Weinstein’s behavior.
Farrow writes:
Two private investigators from Black Cube, using false identities, met with the actress Rose McGowan, who eventually publicly accused Weinstein of rape, to extract information from her. One of the investigators pretended to be a women’s-rights advocate and secretly recorded at least four meetings with McGowan. The same operative, using a different false identity and implying that she had an allegation against Weinstein, met twice with a journalist to find out which women were talking to the press. In other cases, journalists directed by Weinstein or the private investigators interviewed women and reported back the details.
The explicit goal of the investigations, laid out in one contract with Black Cube, signed in July, was to stop the publication of the abuse allegations against Weinstein that eventually emerged in the New York Times and The New Yorker. Over the course of a year, Weinstein had the agencies “target,” or collect information on, dozens of individuals, and compile psychological profiles that sometimes focussed on their personal or sexual histories. Weinstein monitored the progress of the investigations personally. He also enlisted former employees from his film enterprises to join in the effort, collecting names and placing calls that, according to some sources who received them, felt intimidating.
The identity of at least one Black Cube agent was compromised when McGowan, who had met several times with a women’s rights advocate named Diana Filip, and Farrow (who had also been contacted by a woman calling herself “Diana Filip”) compared notes:
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 recognized her instantly. “Oh my God,” she wrote back. “Reuben Capital. Diana Filip. No f***ing way.”
Weinstein’s campaign to silence his accusers began in the fall of 2016, and despite the very real fear of what could happen to those who spoke out, it appears to have failed.
