Shredded Trump documents and spy games: Ronan Farrow's biggest scoops
Ronan Farrow’s book Catch and Kill, published on Tuesday, is causing a stir with its extraordinary array of scoops about how powerful figures and institutions across media and politics sought to cover up some of the biggest stories of the #MeToo era.
Here are some of the book’s top revelations:
National Enquirer Trump documents Spy games shredded
Just days before Donald Trump was elected president in November 2016, the supermarket tabloid and its parent company American Media Inc (AMI) shredded key documents relating to Trump from its top-secret safe, Farrow alleges.
The shredding allegedly took place after the Wall Street Journal reported that the Enquirer had agreed to pay the former Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 to suppress her story of an affair with Trump. When publishers buy and then bury a story, it is known in the trade as “catch and kill” – the title of Farrow’s book.
Farrow also alleges the former Enquirer editor now AMI executive Dylan Howard ordered reporters to get “dirt on that bitch” in reference to the actor Rose McGowan, who accused movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of raping her.
Howard has denied the allegations and, as the Daily Beast disclosed, has hired lawyers on three continents to try to block publication of Farrow’s book.
Weinstein, who is set to go on trial on criminal rape charges in January, has also denied any non-consensual sexual activity.
Catch and Kill describes in gripping detail the lengths to which Weinstein and his lawyers went to keep tabs on Farrow. Through the Israeli security firm Black Cube, they set a couple of undercover private detectives on the journalist’s trail, staking out his Manhattan apartment and following him as he visited sources and editors.
The pair sat in a car monitoring his building for such long stretches of time that one had to resort to urinating in a bottle. Farrow can draw on such granular detail, he says, because one of the Black Cube agents felt so uncomfortable about surveilling a journalist that he secretly approached Farrow and told him everything.
Matt Lauer rape allegations
Lauer, a huge star in the NBC News firmament as the anchor of the Today show, was fired in November 2017 for engaging in “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace”. Catch and Kill goes much further.
It alleges Lauer anally raped a young colleague, Brooke Nevils, at the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014. Farrow has Nevils on the record.
“It was nonconsensual in that I said, multiple times, that I didn’t want” it, she is quoted as saying.
Lauer has issued a long denial in which he has said the sexual encounter in Sochi, and the affair that ensued, was “mutual and completely consensual”.
NBC News buckled under Weinstein pressure
One of the most striking elements of Farrow’s book is that it joins up the dots of the #MeToo era to depict a vast web of intrigue designed to protect powerful men engaging in sexual misconduct. The allegations against Weinstein and Lauer connect in Catch and Kill through the alleged efforts by NBC News to kill Farrow’s investigation.
According to Farrow, the president of NBC News, Noah Oppenheim, told him six times to stop reporting the Weinstein story. The journalists goes on to allege that the move to stymie his story was made after NBC News came under siege from Weinstein.
Why did NBC News cave in? Farrow reaches a clear conclusion in his book – he alleges it was anxious about allegations emerging relating to its own star, Lauer.
“As we can now see, this was a company with a lot of secrets that were under threat of exposure,” he told NPR this week.
Oppenheim and NBC News have stridently denied Farrow’s portrayal of events.
“We have no secrets and nothing to hide,” the network’s president wrote in a memo to staff, going on to accuse Farrow of a “conspiracy theory”.
Friends in high places
Catch and Kill explores how Weinstein managed to continue to operate despite many years of sexual allegations against him. One explanation it offers is the producer’s overwhelming Rolodex of connections.
Among those connections were Hillary Clinton, who Farrow describes as cancelling an interview with him on grounds, he was told by a Clinton aide, that “we know about the big story you’re on … it’s a concern for us.” The aide has denied there was any significance to the cancellation.
Farrow also describes a conversation with the renowned news anchor Tom Brokaw. Brokaw was at first supportive of Farrow’s mission, but when he learned the subject of the probe was Weinstein said: “I have to disclose, Ronan, that Harvey Weinstein is a friend.”
The author also talks about his relationship with Lisa Bloom, a lawyer with a reputation for representing women in sexual harassment and assault cases. Farrow worked closely with Bloom, but he relates how he discovered that she was passing information about his investigation direct to Weinstein, a sometime client.
In an interview with Pod Save America, Farrow called Bloom a “double agent”. He said he confronted her and said she had promised not to tell Weinstein’s people. Bloom’s reply, according to Farrow: “Oh Ronan, I am his people”.
Last month, Bloom apologised for “the colossal mistake I made working for Weinstein”.
As we can now see, this was a company with a lot of secrets that were under threat of exposure