Catch and Kill

Oppenheim reaches out to Farrow to offer him a new contract with NBC in an attempt to limit the network’s liability. Farrow is reluctant to accept because he does not want to be forced to lie about NBC’s role in suppressing the story. He worries that the contact from Oppenheim is merely an attempt to stymie a burgeoning public relations crisis. Farrow is torn; at a big network like NBC, he believes he can bring the stories of the survivors the attention they deserve. One of the people from NBC who reaches out to him is Matt Lauer.

Farrow appears on many networks, including NBC, and tries to refocus discussion of the story on the survivors. In one interview on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow asks him why he published with The New Yorker rather than NBC He struggles to dodge the question and denies NBC’s claim that his initial story was too weak to report. As he walks off the set afterwards, Farrow bursts into tears. 

As soon as the Rachel Maddow interview is over, Farrow receives a call from Noah Oppenheim. Farrow’s comments have “set off a firestorm” (180) and Oppenheim sounds nervous. He hopes Farrow will sign a statement explaining that NBC never had the whole story. The two men spend hours debating the finer points of how Farrow can exculpate NBC. Farrow wants to return to his job but he refuses to compromise his ethics. He remains in the Maddow studio for hours arguing on the phone with Oppenheim and others. Rumors persist that NBC has helped to cover up numerous scandals.

Farrow sits down for an interview with Matt Lauer on NBC. Lauer seems awkward and tries to compel Farrow to agree with statements that are patently untrue. Hours later, Oppenheim gathers together all of the producers and reporters to come to an agreement on what happened with the Harvey Weinstein story. Even as he tries to set the story straight, McHugh speaks out to disagree. The journalists at NBC are all confused and annoyed that NBC may have shut down a legitimate investigation. Afterward, Oppenheim and McHugh have a heated discussion and McHugh is left wondering whether he has the cachet or the profile to refuse to toe the company line like Farrow.

Even famous figures like Hillary Clinton are swept up in the aftermath of the story. She tries to keep silent on the matter, but finally she is forced to issue a statement saying that she is shocked and appalled. Woody Allen is criticized for saying that “the whole Harvey Weinstein thing is very sad for everybody involved” (182). Other celebrities claim that they never knew about Weinstein’s behavior. 

The women in Farrow’s story react in the wake of publication. At the same time, many of the people who secretly worked for Harvey Weinstein begin to unravel. Rose McGowan thanks Farrow, as does Annabella Sciorra who opens up about her own experience of sexual assault by Weinstein which took place across many harrowing years. The actress Daryl Hannah also comes forward with a similarly horrifying story. All of the women felt their careers were threatened because they dared to decline Weinstein’s advances. Additionally, they struggled to tell their stories because Weinstein’s “vice grip on the media made it hard to know whom to trust” (187). Weinstein is also accused of spying on people who might move against him. Farrow inquires more about this and is given the name of the British journalist Seth Freedman. 

Seth Freedman is a stockbroker turned Israeli Defense Forces recruit turned whistleblower turned journalist. Farrow reaches out to Freedman, who immediately and enthusiastically offers to help and sends a “list of targets” (188) which features many of the women from Farrow’s reporting. In a conversation with Farrow, Freedman suggests that he worked for Weinstein in the past to gather information about people but insists that he backed out of any operation when he learned that the case involved sexual assault. Freedman eventually mentions the name Black Cube to Farrow.

One of Israel’s foremost private detective/intelligence firms, Black Cube has 100 employees who speak 30 languages, offices in London, Paris, and Tel Aviv, and an incredibly strict security policy. As Farrow investigates Black Cube and convinces some internal sources to talk to him, the agency denies everything. Employees confess to nefarious behavior on the condition of anonymity. One anonymous source agrees to send Farrow documents. 

The documents from Black Cube detail the firm’s work for Harvey Weinstein. Black Cube agreed to provide intelligence to stop the publication of a negative article about Weinstein and to obtain the content of a book being written about him. The firm has a dedicated team of intelligence officers who use fake identities, often posing as investigative journalists. The bills from Black Cube amount to $1.3 million.

Black Cube insists that it adheres to the law, but sources suggest otherwise. Farrow contacts David Boies whose name appears on the contracts and whose law firm also represents the New York Times. Eventually Boies admits that they should not have hired “investigators that we did not select and direct” (192). He claims that hiring Black Cube was a mistake. When Farrow returns to his anonymous sources at Black Cube, he thinks that he might have become embroiled in a “civil war among spies” (193) with different people sending him competing information. Farrow delves deeper. 

The editorial team at The New Yorker wants to find out more about the anonymous sources sending Farrow information about Black Cube’s activities. Farrow reaches out to McGowan who was supposedly targeted by an undercover Black Cube agent. McGowan recognizes the woman immediately as Diana Filip.

Diana Filip’s real name is Stella Penn Pechanac. She grew up in the Balkans during a devastating war and later became an Israeli citizen. For years she worked for Black Cube trying to extract information from people using a variety of fake names and identities. Black Cube dispatched her to McGowan to infiltrate the actress’s life and try to learn anything she could about her upcoming book which made accusations against Harvey Weinstein. The two women became good friends. Farrow reveals to McGowan what he has learned about Diana, and she is shocked. 

Harvey Weinstein’s intelligence operations are not limited to Black Cube. Farrow uncovers more and more private intelligence firms during his investigation. Sometimes those who work within the firms want to leak anonymous information while the heads of the firms want to disparage and implicate their rivals. Such firms have helped Weinstein take on plentiful legal battles by researching, threatening, and blackmailing his enemies. Detailed reports of people like Rose McGowan pinpoint exact ways in which she could be targeted or discredited. Similar patterns exist around women like Ambra Gutierrez.

The close bond between Weinstein and Dylan Howard of the National Enquirer also emerges. Howard hired reporters and photographers with the express purpose of digging up potentially damaging information. Farrow and his team prepare a report on Weinstein’s “army of collaborators” (198). Panicked, the people implicated in the story send legal threats, just as Weinstein had done in the past. The article is published anyway. Roman Khaykin and Igor Ostrovskiy read the article and realize what they have been hired to do. They disagree on the morality of their involvement but insist that they have not broken the law. Farrow tries to uncover the identity of his anonymous source inside Black Cube to offer whatever protection he can, but the source declines to identify herself beyond saying that she is a woman who was ashamed of her role in defending Weinstein. 

Sources come forward to claim that Dylan Howard and the National Inquirer have stories on far more people than just Harvey Weinstein and that the newspaper deliberately silences these stories as personal favors. A story about a model named Karen McDougal who had an affair with President Donald Trump is among the rumored stories. Farrow reaches out to McDougal to see if she will go on the record about her experience. He discovers that her silence has been bought with a nondisclosure agreement. Nevertheless, she begins to open up to him.

McDougal met Trump at a party at the Playboy Mansion in 2006. He had recently married the Slovenian model Melania Knauss with whom he had a two-month-old son. Nevertheless, Trump was immediately attracted to McDougal and pestered her throughout the day. They had sex, and afterwards he offered her money. She refused but occasionally visited him whenever he was in Los Angeles. The two began a regular affair which ended after nine months. When Trump announced his presidential run, McDougal considered selling her story to the media. Through a series of lawyers and intermediaries Trump begged Howard to buy the story. The National Inquirer bought the exclusive rights to McDougal’s version of events but never published them. She did not truly understand the ramifications of the documents she signed.

After Trump wins the presidency, McDougal no longer wants to remain silent. She reaches out to Farrow to spread her story to the world even though Trump and the White House dismiss her account as “fake news.” 

Farrow uses Karen McDougal’s experience with the National Inquirer and their parent company AMI to research more instances of stories being suppressed for Donald Trump. One rumor suggests that Trump fathered a child with his housekeeper. The rumor may not be true, but Farrow’s investigation suggests that AMI certainly bought the exclusive rights to such a story from a former Trump employee named Dino Sajudin. Later, when journalists try to report the story, AMI threatens to sue anyone who breaches their exclusivity deal.

By March 2018, sources within the National Inquirer are willing to talk. A few days later, Farrow seeks out Sajudin, the supposed hidden Trump child, but the pursuit returns nothing. Dylan Howard and others at AMI deny everything, as does the President’s team at the White House. The New Yorker publishes a story on everything they have been able to discover and verify.

AMI does not have a successful track record in trying to catch and kill every story. One infamous story links Trump with the billionaire investor and accused pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Farrow is able to verify the friendship between Epstein and Trump but not the accusations of serious sexual assault that were made by one woman against the two men. Howard and people at AMI certainly tried to silence the accuser by purchasing her story but could not complete the deal. The National Enquirer runs several stories about the accusations which take Trump’s side and dismiss the allegations as unfounded and disgusting.

Another story circulating around Trump concerns an affair with the pornographic actress Stormy Daniels. She signed an NDA to prevent her from talking about a sexual affair with Trump, similar to the agreement signed by McDougal. The string of stories AMI tried to bury on Trumps behalf “raised thorny legal and political questions” (208), writes Farrow. The President discloses none of the payments he makes to women and may have violated election law. Meanwhile, the executives at AMI benefit from the services they provide in catching and killing stories about Trump, who helps to arrange business deals and other profitable ventures for them through the White House. AMI has also amassed a treasure trove of information they could potentially use to blackmail the President. Howard brags to friends about how much power his accumulation of stories brings him.