Weinstein hired former Mossad agents to suppress sexual assault stories

Shamed film producer tasked private investigators, formerly members of Israel’s spy agency, to ‘stop the publication of the abuse allegations,’ according to The New Yorker

Times of Israel

Shamed film producer Harvey Weinstein reportedly hired former Mossad agents to suppress the publication of looming stories that he sexually harassed and assaulted scores of women for decades, according to a new report in The New Yorker magazine.

Starting in the fall of 2016, as reporters were digging into his conduct, Weinstein reportedly began to hire private security agencies to “collect information on the women and journalists trying to expose the allegations” that he serially assaulted women.

These allegations were first published several weeks ago through bombshell reports in The New York Times and The New Yorker.

Among the firms Weinstein is said to have hired was Black Cube, an Israeli company headquartered in Tel Aviv that is comprised mostly of former Mossad officers.

On its website, it bills itself as a “select group of veterans from the Israeli elite intelligence units that specializes in tailored solutions to complex business and litigation challenges.”

Ronan Farrow, who also authored the initial New Yorker report that detailed claims against Weinstein, said he obtained a copy of the contract between Weinstein and the firm that was signed in July.

Farrow said the “explicit goal of the investigations,” was to “stop the publication of the abuse allegations against Weinstein.”

Over the one-year period the firm worked for Weinstein, it reportedly targeted dozens of individuals to collect personal information on them, including their sexual histories, to attempt to prevent them from going forward with reporting Weinstein’s alleged behavior.

The magazine report said that two operatives with Black Cube met with Rose McGowan, an American actress who accuses Weinstein of raping her, using fake identities — one as a women’s rights advocate — and secretly recorded their conversations.

Weinstein was said to have closely monitored this work as it was ongoing, although his lawyers worked with investigators as well. This included David Boies, who is most famous for having represented former vice president Al Gore in the highly-consequential Supreme Court case Bush v. Gore.

Boies himself signed the contract with Black Cube stipulating that they would work to stop The New York Times from publishing its story on Weinstein. At the same time, his firm was representing The New York Times in separate cases. Boies confirmed to The New Yorker that his law firm engaged in these contracts.

Weinstein’s spokeswoman Sallie Hofmeister issued a statement to The New Yorker that accused it of trafficking in “inaccuracies and wild conspiracy theories.”