NY Times rips David Boies for ‘betrayal’ in secretly helping Harvey Weinstein
In a remarkable piece in the New Yorker, Ronan Farrow exposes how some of these highly compensated people used deceptive tactics—including phony names and fabricated companies—to intimidate Weinstein’s accusers and the journalists reporting on him.
Farrow, who published allegations of sexual assault and harassment by numerous women against Weinstein, is especially dogged in delving into these dark corners. He went to the New Yorker after NBC, which employs him as a special correspondent, declined to air his earlier reporting, which broke open the scandal after a very strong piece in the New York Times.
It’s the fact that the Times has been investigating Weinstein that made Boies’ conduct in representing him so egregious, because he is also a lawyer for the newspaper.
As Farrow reports about Black Cube, an investigative outfit run largely by former Israeli intelligence agents: “Boies personally signed the contract directing Black Cube to attempt to uncover information that would stop the publication of a Times story about Weinstein’s abuses, while his firm was also representing the Times, including in a libel case.”
That brought this stinging statement from the Times:
“We learned today that the law firm of Boies Schiller and Flexner secretly worked to stop our reporting on Harvey Weinstein at the same time as the firm’s lawyers were representing us in other matters. We consider this intolerable conduct, a grave betrayal of trust, and a breach of the basic professional standards that all lawyers are required to observe. It is inexcusable and we will be pursuing appropriate remedies.”
NY Times rips David Boies for ‘betrayal’ in secretly helping Harvey Weinstein