[SCOTT WALTER]
Thanks for tuning in I'm Scott Walter, and I'm Michael Watson and in this episode we have Hollywood sex abuse and big money left-wing donors and behind all of it. This is the influence watch podcast.

Thanks for joining us. This is our first episode of the influence watch podcast, and what we're going to do on this show is take the major news stories you've been hearing about and then go beneath the surface to reveal the web of connected influence, money and motivation driving the story. It's sourced primarily from our website influencewatch.org, which is our online encyclopedia of the donors nonprofits and influencers driving politics.

This week Hollywood is falling apart. A cavalcade of executives and celebrities have been accused of sexual misconduct over months, dramatically altering the state of the industry as we know it. There's almost too many names to count and it all started with accusations against producer and co-founder of The Weinstein Company, Harvey Weinstein. Since then we've seen accusations against actor and producer Kevin Spacey, producer director Brett Ratner, TV host Charlie Rose, head of Pixar John Lasseter, writer director James Toback, producer and head of Amazon Studios Roy Price actor Jeffrey Tambor, NBC News contributor Mark Halperin, comedian Louis C.K., talent agents Adam Bennett and Tyler Gresham, comedian turned senator Al Franken and many many more.

Not all of these accusations are the same and they're not all equally credible or equally egregious but in context they demonstrate a trend of disgusting lack of respect for women that's been going on as an open secret in the entertainment industry for decades. The place where some might least expect it, given Hollywood's publicly professed progressive values.

Mike tell us a little bit about the scale of the allegations. 

[MIKE WATSON]
The scale of the allegations, honestly are stunning. Weinstein reportedly faces a criminal
investigation in New York City for rape, the district attorney for ManhattanÐgentleman by the name of Vance jr. who had previously been loath to investigate Weinstein under fairly questionable circumstances. Weinstein's lawyers contributed money to Vance's campaign reelection fund shortly after Vance agreed not to prosecute Weinstein for a previous allegation of criminal sexual assault. That has no longer proven politically tenable so now there have been there have been reports out of New York City that Vance and his office have brought a case towards the grand jury. The police in Beverly Hills say they are investigating 12 entertainment industry figures. The police in Los Angeles say they have at least 28 investigations open. These are both reported by the Los Angeles Times. There's a clear vast problem and it's not you know just inappropriate behavior these are criminal investigations that are reportedly going on

Another thing that another scary thing is how long some of the more prominent people who have been who have been indicated who have been implicated seem to have gotten away with it. The allegations against Weinstein go back to the early 90s. Actress Annabella Sciorra accused him of rape back in back in 1992.

The main allegation against Kevin Spacey which came from actor Anthony Rapp who alleges that Spacey held him down on a bed when he was 14 and attempted to have his way with him that dates from 1986. And the other again amazing thing is the prominence of some of the of the
people who have made accusations. The people who have been who have been victimized Ashley Judd, Gwyneth Paltrow, Lupita Nyong'o all very prominent actresses. Oscar's 100 million-dollar films you know that they have made. They have all accused Weinstein of either attempting to improperly solicit them for sexual activity or of worse and Olivia Munn and Ellen Page both A-list actresses have accused Brett Ratner. The rot is just so deep that's really impressive and it's not just Hollywood either. 

Journalism has had a lot of high flying figures crash some of the some of the high some of the highest flying arguably. The precursor to everything that's gone down in Hollywood was the scandal at Fox News from 2016 when Gretchen Carlson former i believe a former presenter at Fox News came forward alleging sexual harassment and sexual assault by Roger Ailes. It then came out that Bill O'Reilly a longtime face of the network had paid vast sums I think one of them was reported in over thirty million dollars to settle allegations of improper sexual behavior. Since Weinstein it came out all the lefties who are like haha you know Fox's some regressive you know ah this is because they're regressive. No Matt Lauer has been ousted from the Today Show. He's been accused of improper sexual behavior up to an including rape. Charlie Rose has been kicked off CBS this morning and cut by PBS for sexual harassment. In the print and online media Glenn Thrush the who at least was the White House correspondent for the New York Times has been I believe suspended for making inappropriate comments and inappropriate advances back on female reporters and he was at Politico. Lockhart Steele who was the editorial director for Vox was fired for inappropriate conduct.

Michael RS keys of NPR also a to the New York Times fired for fired for improper conduct and then when you get up into politics as I was gonna say that the so far we've covered the showbiz side of this because I certainly count mostly journalism today as showbiz certainly
that's certainly the Today Show on CBS this morning yeah so it's all showbiz

[SCOTT WALTER]
And then that was exactly my next question to you is what about as we famously say in Washington here the showbiz for ugly people is politics. Guess what, they're guilty too. Representatives from both parties have been either accused or have been revealed to have made settlements for inappropriate sexual behavior. One has already resigned. Pressure is building on others to resign. In the Senate there have there has been one senator has been accused as you mentioned earlier Al Franken of Minnesota has been accused of improper behavior back when he was in the entertainment industry.

The president has been accused of improper behavior when he was in the entertainment industry and then candidates in in various races have been accused of very serious improper behavior and that is roiling those races and roiling the balance of power in Washington state legislators apparently are worse. Multiple there have been multiple resignations in California there have been just today the Daily Beast's reported on in the Texas State Legislature there is a spreadsheet of men who are accused of various forms of misconduct ranging from being a bad boss up to an including rape. The same power imbalance driven misconduct that has roiled Hollywood and has roiled journalism is also roiling politics and we have probably just begun to scratch the surface of what's going to come from this now. 

I think you're right and I wanted to turn us now a bit into what influence watch specializes in which is tracking the influencers, especially the nonprofit groups also political groups. And in the case of Weinstein and Spacey they were often prominent in charity work and political involvement and that's having repercussions now isn't it a massive both Weinstein and Spacey who were right now in entertainment probably the two most prominent were very close with the Clinton family. Weinstein was a major donor to the Clinton campaigns he was reportedly a close personal friend of Hillary Clinton who would send him things like who would send her things like film pre-release screeners and just the other day the New York Times came out with a very kind of bombshell report that Weinstein was working with Clinton on a documentary film as recently as September the allegations broke in October yeah you know before it was just weeks but just weeks before and then you know most you know a couple of entertainment industry figures actress Lena Dunham and glossy magazine publisher Tina Brown claimed that they had warned the Clinton campaigns both in 2008 and 2016 that Weinstein was bad news and there's an irony here because of course Hillary Clinton very much traded on her being the first woman candidate for president and yet there's a there's a perverse irony especially with Weinstein and out allegations against him compared to his charitable contributions or pledged
charitable contributions. Can you tell us a bit about that?

[MIKE WATSON]
Yeah he, Weinstein was a prominent was wanted to be a prominent supporter of Planned Parenthood and of liberal women's issues he and his now estranged I believe they haven't finally filed for divorce but I believe they are estranged wife New York fashion designer Georgina Chapman attended Planned Parenthood's big hundred year gala where Hillary Clinton gave a speech Weinstein pledged Planned Parenthood a hundred thousand dollar contribution the Planned Parenthood is denied ever having received it of course they did that after Weinstein turned out to be a horrible person. So you know whether that's true or not only they know yes that's not something that has to be disclosed no and again it goes back even further especially in Weinstein's case the back in the 2012 campaign he was conducting fundraisers for the reelection of President Obama Weinstein apparently gave a speech The Hartford Courant reports in which he said quote fighting for Planned Parenthood and protecting women's rights. This president has fought the good fight takes on a bit of a sinister undertone now that you think about what Weinstein has allegedly done.

[SCOTT WALTER]
Yes I remember to in the and the New York Times story there's the point about how when Weinstein would be challenged for being a sociopath apparently he had as one of his standard response, ÔI'm friends with the president who are you friends with.Õ 

[MIKE WATSON]
Yep he he and he had again if you accept the New York Times reporting which seems to be pretty thorough that he had an elaborate network of intimidation tactics. Influence essentially influence buying, influence trading that he used to either throw reporters off the case to give reporters something else to do commissioning books and films that they that they would then go do instead of chasing him down. You know or ultimately making legal threats and influence trading threats it wasn't just his political contributions though again the charitable side of this mattered he I believe was offering a large sum of money to Rutgers he gave them a large sum of money hundred thousand dollars. Rutgers a couple years ago commissioned a Gloria Steinem endowed chair in media culture and feminist studies Weinstein was among the many notables who contributed to this again to show ÔI'm a good you know liberal feministÕ and again where it gets worse. It's interesting is in his last after the New York Times reported the first allegations in advance of lest we forget The New Yorker and Ronan Farrow who was going to come out with even more explosive allegations. He put out this bizarre statement in which he tried to clean up what was about what would had been revealed in the New York Times and what was about to be revealed by The New Yorker and by Ronan Farrow by among other things attacking the National Rifle Association and offering to endow a chair and scholarships for women directors at the University of Southern California and that was now again to everyone's credit. You know everybody saw right through it because of again probably just because of the sheer scale of what he was accused of but you know this was an attempt at a proactive clean-up operation 

[SCOTT WALTER]
Yes I think I think the term for that ought to be charity washing where you try to wash away your bad deeds with claims that you're a generous wonderful contributor to charities and there's speaking of very dubious charities we should move from Weinstein here for a moment to Kevin Spacey his charitable work hasn't yet been seriously impugned but is a little creepy if you want to explain for listeners 

[MIKE WATSON]
Sure, the Kevin Spacey before it was revealed that he had allegedly been preying on young men in the entertainment industry ran a Kevin Spacey foundation and one of its principal charitable activity was offering mentorship and scholarships to quote emerging artists close quote given what he stands accused of one immediately has to worry that he was doing something like what disgraced Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky who was convicted for gross child sexual abuse. What he was doing with his charity the second mile which was using a charity as a front to either bring himself into contact with people that he could then abuse or to prepare people to be abused now for the record there have been to my knowledge no allegations that Spacey did that however it certainly seems to warrant investigation very serious investigation given the allegations that have come out against him and it's not just Anthony Rapp apparently up at least 14 14 men have come forward and said that Spacey engaged in unwanted sexual contact know that it's it's quite disturbing.

[SCOTT WALTER]
Well what do you make of the bigger picture here you know what's going on and what's likely to happen and it's kind of hard to say we've for the past you know the first allegations against Weinstein came out in late October and since then it has again they have spiraled we what we seem to have revealed is that throughout American public life in just about every walk of American public life prominent and powerful men have spent most of the past thirty years getting away with atrocious behavior. Atrocious even criminal behavior you know two of the three major Network morning shows the male anchor has been has been fired for sexual misconduct. Both major political parties have prominent figures who have been implicated in sexual misconduct. Press outlets New York Times NPR Fox media all have had to sideline people for misconduct ranging from inappropriate workplace behavior to alleged sexual assault. Ultimately it looks like that sort of Clinton era idea that as long as you were a good progressive as long as you were as long as you gave lip service to women's rights as the left understood it that you would have what was derided as one free grope. That seems to be gone now. I put an asterisk there because there are some of especially in politics some of these figures are now are trying to hang on.

It's possible our political system may be built fail deadly such that politics has a harder job getting rid of these people because partisans have to write you know partisans go into the rationalizations that oh there are hostile media outlet or oh they're a if I don't vote for this compromised candidate then bad things will happen so that may that may be failed you know that may be fail deadly that may prevent the cleansing that has that is occurring and seems to be occurring in Hollywood. In the media from taking place in politics we shouldn't just be talking about the abusers I guess the there are lots of enablers who don't themselves abuse but are critically important in support of the actual abusers. 

I mean in in politics I think it was ten days was the clock on Nancy Pelosi saying anything about her very powerful colleague Mr. Conyers and in the New York Times stories you have Weinstein having various female staffers who were his apparently procures its alleged they if you if you read Ronan Farrow is reporting on Weinstein and also the latest New York Times reporting on Weinstein the elaborate defenses and the number of people who either were accomplices or should have known that there was something bad going on is is stunning.

Yeah, I want to know why I think it was the first New York Times story to give credit but in any minute there's an aspect of this that that's been reported once but I haven't heard much comment on and I think it's it unites Hollywood in politics yet again and that is Weinstein for a good while knew that he was being tracked. The dirt was being accumulated people were beginning to talk and he went into very elaborate defenses and one of the most stunning elaborate defenses was hiring a private investigation firm that used among other things former Mossad agents and the PIA eyes were supposed to track down dirt on the people who were going to hurt him and to build on that. This also implicated the daughter of Gloria Allred the famous feminist attorney. Lisa bloom who was also purports to be a famous feminist attorney originally represented Weinstein and allegedly I think it might have been the Pharaoh report said that she was involved in that sort of discrediting effort but again another thing you know in if I may recall Weinstein's hilarious statement that he gave the night that the New York Times and has dropped the initial allegations to try to explain that he was a good person and that this wasn't just an act of charity washing this wasn't just an act of covering himself he said quote about his USC programs that he was endowing quote ÒOne year ago I began organizing a five million dollar foundation to give scholarships to women directors at the University of Southern California. While this might seem coincidental it has been in the works for a yearÓ 

Problem is that Ronin Pharaoh's reporting had also been in the works for at least most of that year and lest we lest we let NBC off the hook Pharaoh was assignment was a contributor to NBC which is Matt Lauer's Network also the network at which now President Donald Trump was a major entertainment figure for many many years as host of The Apprentice. Both men have been accused of various nefarious activities and NBC appears to have told Pharaoh to take a hike with his story for which I would argue he deserves the Pulitzer Prize. No use in the subject of enablers no well and an another enabler who spans the worlds of politics and Hollywood is the very prominent powerful lawyer David Boies and the New York Times had explained that Boies was apparently the bagman for the dirty private investigative firm that was helping Weinstein harass his potential critics and the reason for using an attorney for that of course is because then you can try to claim that your dirty PI work deserves attorney-client privilege in a way it wouldn't otherwise get if you just wrote the check directly to the PI firm. 

But then in the final twist on all of this because this is really impressive and it's a I think it deserves much more attention so kind of thing we like to feature for influence watch the connections that people are missing David Boies powerful democratic attorney in fact he was in on the on the weekend wasn't Gore's score's lawyer in Bush v yeah he was he was the lawyer in the the recount fight over the gore election in 2000. He was prominently he was the leader I believe of the the prop 8 legal fight to getting rid of California's ballot initiative that defined marriage and traditional fashion but he not only had Harvey Weinstein as a client on Hollywood side he also had the New York Times as a client while and it was here while the New York Times was purporting out a story that ultimately was not published regarding Weinstein's alleged misbehavior yes so and even now that's a an egregious violation of legal ethics.

To say nothing of perhaps some other kinds of ethics and I was amused that Boies in the New York Times story they did bother to ask him about the irregularity of serving both sides like that and he admitted that he probably shouldn't have done that but that's that. That's a degree of enabling that I think deserves some sort of blue ribbon.

[SCOTT WALTER]
So there's it you know the folks in the rest of America who don't live in powerful Washington DC or Hollywood or Pacific Heights or something the I said well I wonder if they're going to look at this and think this is a tiny powerful elite that really looks after itself do you think it's it's going to feed into that view possibly?

[MIKE WATSON]
Again I think the you know there that there's problem you know there's problems for everybody in all of this what the New York Post is taken to calling prove NATO the the left and the Democrats suffer because Hollywood is losing some of its luster certainly as a as a moral force the people you know who watch South Park will remember the smug alert episode where George Clooney's speech at the Oscars against then President George W Bush is going to mix with the cloud of smog from San Francisco and destroy the town um yeah they have much less to be smug about this year than they did in previous years.

[SCOTT WALTER]
And I think at this point we can say the Weinstein and Spacey were the tip of the iceberg more have you know more have come out it keeps coming out and then the 501 C the sort of 501 C advocacy groups that these stars have lent their star power to Planned Parenthood being perhaps the most notable also you know there are you know there are there are others but Planned Parenthood's the most notable are they going to lose that sort of reflected shine as well and then you have the fact that numerous prominent current and former Democratic politicians work in for Hollywood or people close to prominent Democratic politicians work in in in for Hollywood the head of MPAA the Motion Picture Association of America which is the main 501 C 6 business lead lobbying organization on behalf of the film industry is former senator from Connecticut Chris Dodd who by the way had some old-fashioned scandal in his witches say money rather than sex in his past because why is he why you see the ex-senator of Connecticut was it mortgages yeah he had he was mixed up in you he was one of the seeing country was a countrywide friends of he was in the elite friends of the head of Countrywide which is a not terribly clean mortgage company and had some very very pleasant terms on one of his mortgages although.

To be fair let's not forget that Chris Dodd was also back before that he was the notorious partner in crime with Senator Ted Kennedy who still deserves to be recognized as one of the leading famous sex scandal politicians in fact I'll I'll date myself I'm old enough to remember the Robert Bork Senate I'm sorry Supreme Court nomination battle which was back in the 80s in the Reagan administration he was a Reagan appointed judge. Robert Bork who was probably the most distinguished conservative legal thinker of the 20th century

[MIKE WATSON]
I give that Antonin Scalia but 

[SCOTT WALTER]
Yeah Scalia and Bork were best friends and both giants but Scalia got through easily right after the re-election of Reagan and Bork unfortunately was nominated just as the Iran-contra scandal was starting under President Reagan but the fight against him was led by Ted Kennedy and again the feminist activist groups were very concerned about this because they were very worried that Judge Bork though he had never uttered any words about abortion was a strict constructionist in legal terms and so he was thought to imperil the the roe v wade abortion decision and so there the women's groups champion Ted Kennedy was the leading attacker of Bork and it was one I don't I'm not gonna remember the outlet was the New Yorker it was a it was a liberal magazine that had a long piece on Ted Kennedy.

If they're to be believed on the very day in the Bork confirmation hearings that was entirely devoted to feminist groups during the lunch break Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd went to a very fine and expensive French restaurant and had some thoroughly unseemly behavior with the waitresses at this so it's maybe this is a longer story than we'd realize it's just but the big cultural change seems to be that.

[MIKE WATSON]
Yeah, the big cultural change is that now is that now people are coming forward and I think you know part of again part of the difficulty for the right is that who is the the in traditional sheep farming and you know pastoral societies there's the talk of the Judas goat which is a goat that is trained to lead the Sheep to lead the Lambs either to the shear or to the slaughter who is the Judas goat in all this I would argue it as the president of the United States in the 2016 election he appeared to get away with extraordinarily bad conduct you know numerous accusations about his personal behavior obviously he said disgusting things and he got away with it and I think that in that sort of karmic visiting upon progressives for the sins of Bill Clinton who obviously got away with considerably worse behavior by all accounts. I mean Bill Clinton has been credibly accused of rape to my knowledge Donald Trump is not. 

The fact that he got out that Trump got away with it I think that set something off in a new kind of leftist of a new kind of progressive who kind of believes all the stuff that progressives say they believe that there are consequences to letting letting the Bill Clinton's or the world get away with it and I think that is part of why you have seen the sort of break out of people who are willing to come forward because they believe now that there will be consequences but again to throw another tie you know former Obama administration chief of staff now mayor of Chicago Rahm Rahm Emanuel is three degrees of Kevin Bacon from a major for one of the major Hollywood sex scandals. His brother reruns William Morris Endeavor which is one of the big talent agencies that represents numerous Hollywood actors Adam Sandler is one of the most prominent until recently one of William Morris is Billy Morrison Deborah's clients was Terry Crews the former NFL player now on Brooklyn nine-nine that's the show that I watched that he's in and he accused one of their agents of a guy by the name of Adam V net of just grabbing him in the frontal area in a manner that was extremely extremely inappropriate and legally probably sexual assault Cruz is now sued v-net and William Morris Endeavor especially now that after William Morris Endeavor has reinstated v-net Cruz. Cruz's position was that I gave the company a chance to do the right thing to take vena it's accusation seriously I take my accusation against me in it seriously there are apparently witnesses they didn't. They suspended him for a couple weeks and then let him come back now produces suit and the and the prior and one of the proprietors is the brother of rahm emanuel. 

Yeah the more you're tied into these networks if they are as corrupted as they appear to be the more problems you will have now.

[SCOTT WALTER]
Well we haven't touched on some of the ramifications for the film industry that are likely to happen again speaking of influence the film industry's influence is both in the political world and your your television set on a given evening but it's also influenced in state and local politics and money in a way that a lot of people don't realize sure and if you happen to be a Maryland taxpayer you have contributed to the pocketbook of one Kevin Spacey indirectly.

[MIKE WATSON]
A lot of states Maryland does it Georgia does it a lot of show a lot of shows you know made in Georgia well it's because Georgia is giving them tax subsidies. Maryland famously did it for house of cards which was starred one Kevin Spacey who has been credibly accused of numerous counts of sexual assault. You know state legislators like this because it's good you know they think it's good for tourism they get lobbied do they get to then go to the party and we get to join the only get did I get they get to they get to feel like they're a part of part of the glitz and glam. Nut if it comes out that actually you're probably dealing with some really nefarious people that that may go away, then other favors that the motion picture industry counts on things like content probably no copyright deals the Disney rule that the Mickey Mouse rule where copyright just keeps getting extended whenever it turns out that Mickey Mouse is about to enter the public domain, trading arrangements with foreign countries that may involve a services side of the trade agreement that would benefit the motion picture industry. The more that comes out the less culture the more the cultural power of Hollywood is tainted the more that that photograph of you as a politician you know sailor this the chairman of the Maryland ways in Maryland House Ways and Means Committee you know if actually you're photographed with Kevin Spacey isn't look at how cool I am but please feminist primary challenger hit me.

[SCOTT WALTER]
Yes.

[MIKE WATSON]
You know that's going to that's going to impact the industry's ability to do business especially if it seems like they're getting special favors which they are know exactly 

[SCOTT WALTER]
And it's exactly that kind of influence that we're going to be investigating every week here so that's our show for this week but if you're listening to this on iTunes or stitcher I know that we also broadcast a live video version of the same podcast at 10:00 a.m. on Thursdays on Facebook Live and YouTube and go check us out go to CapitalResearch.org. For our YouTube and Facebook links and if you're watching the video version we encourage you to subscribe to the audio on your preferred podcast platform. Thanks so much. 

We'll see you next week.