Ronan Farrow on Matt Lauer’s denial of rape allegation l ABC News

and now we turn to that explosive new book from Ronan Farrow catch and kill documents Ferriss report on the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the accusation of rape against Matt Lauer Ronan is here for his first broadcast interview about the book which has already generated heated denials from Lauer and NBC News but Lindsey Davis starts us off with the details good morning Lindsey good morning George his bombshell reporting earned Ronan Farrow a Pulitzer Prize now in his new book he names names and reveals sources from his investigation into Harvey Weinstein it reads like a Hollywood script of espionage and sabotage a high-stakes game of wacom over spies investigators and Weinstein allies allegedly worked clandestinely to silence witnesses ruin reputations and intimidate whistleblowers in ronan pharaoh's upcoming new book catch and kill the investigative reporter details what he says were powerful attempts to stifle the reporting that ultimately sparked the explosive scandal and the me to movement in August of 2017 Pharaoh says he thought he had enough of a story including secretly recorded audio of Weinstein provided by an alleged victim willing to be named Amerigo Tiaras Pharaoh also says he had an accuser in shadow Anonymous corroborating witnesses and he believed he could convince some accusers to go on the record but instead of airing the story or encouraging more reporting Farrow writes he was told by NBC news executives to pause on all reporting canceled interviews and according to Pharaoh NBC News president Noah Oppenheim questioned whether Harvey Weinstein's comments on the tape were even newsworthy reportedly saying I don't know what it proves he was trying to get rid of her people say a lot of things when they're trying to get rid of a girl like that Harvey Weinstein grabbing a lady's breasts a couple of years ago that's not national news Pharaoh kept going ultimately taking his reporter to the New Yorker magazine Farrell says he was told by noah Oppenheim that he could take it elsewhere saying right now we can't run this go with god the story won a Pulitzer Prize this week in a memo to NBC News staff Chairman Andy lack maintained that when Farrell presented his reporting to NBC he didn't have one damar witness on the record saying pharaoh simply didn't have a story that met our standard for broadcast then with the me2 movement in full swing another stunning fall breaking news overnight Matt Lauer fired for what NBC said was sexual misconduct the former NBC employee behind the complaint Brooke nevels spoke out to Pharaoh for the first time accusing Lauer in graphic detail of raping her in a hotel room while at the 2014 Sochi Olympics on assignment as Meredith Vieira producer in an open letter this week Lauer adamantly denies the allegation saying it was mutual and completely consensual and calling nevile's a fully enthusiastic and willing partner going on to have several more consensual sexual encounters at his New York City apartment and his office at 30 rock until ending what he called an affair pharaoh says nevels acknowledges the encounters and this week she responded to Lauer saying his statement was classic victim shaming and saying the shame in this story belongs to him an NBC spokesperson told us this week Matt Lauer's conduct was appalling horrific and reprehensible as we said at the time that's why we fired him within 24 hours of us learning of the complaint our hearts break again for our colleague George ok Lindsey thanks and now for his first broadcast interviewed the author of catch him killed running fair run and thanks for coming in to be here this morning let's see let's start out with that denial from Matt Lauer he detailed an angry denial he calls your story categorically false this was a consensual affair the accusation of rape is defamatory designed to sell a book and obviously in the book we include his exact thinking without violating any ground rules we've had very strict rules about what we could reveal about what conversations we had with many of the sources in the book the thinking of every person against whom a serious allegation is made is fully represented you talk nothing new there again I can't answer specific questions about that but I can say that Matt Lauer is thinking that's presented in this letter is in the book and I think this young woman this journalist brooke nevels presents what I found to be a persuasive response to that the facts of her case which are backed by documentation and eyewitnesses suggest that there was an encounter here she consistently has described as non-consensual and she says regardless of what happened before and after that and how he interpreted that she said no to a physical act so if he or his allies were to say that you did in fact check those claims extensively fact-checked as with everything in this book let's go into it and then how NBC handled this as well they say they first learned about this in November 2017 that was fire we just saw that within 24 hours here's what an Tilak said any suggestion that we knew prior to that evening or tried to cover up any aspect of Lauer's conduct it's absolutely false and offensive and that they're saying they did something as soon as they knew so this is an important point George this is not what the reporting in the book suggests we spent several years reporting this out extensively fact-checking it what we show in this book with a paper trail with documents is that there were multiple secret settlements and non-disclosures being struck with women at and those winds for the fact weren't they the two non-disclosures years before over a period of six to seven years a period in which NBC had previously had our any settlements there were seven non-disclosure agreements multiple ones of those were with Matt Lauer accusers this is years before this incident with Brooke novels and the firing and I spoke to senior executives who were told about those earlier incidents with Matt Lauer indi they definitely know so when they say this the first they heard about any allegations about Matt Lauer where after the fact we're after November 270 2017 I'll let the facts in the book speak for themselves but I think that is difficult to believe when you look at the documents and records did Brooke or her attorneys use the words rape or sexual assault when they went to NBC we're very careful about laying out exactly what happened and what she said when she went to them she unambiguously described a rape or a sexual assault like many trauma victims she was not ready to use those words so her attorney did what is done very often in criminal investigations in cases like this where someone complains that a company asked a clear series of questions that elicited answers that without any doubt said this is non-consensual and even stopped the proceedings to say this was non-consensual we want to be clear the other big allegation the book NBC prevented you from finishing your reporting on Harvey Weinstein and ELAC says this is a fundamentally untrue picture no Oppenheim I have to write my own book to refute all the ways Ronin willfully distorts our interactions their basic point is they assigned you the story but you didn't come back with one that met their standards including and on the record accusation look I'm confident in the reporting in the book I'll let it stand on its own but the point here is not that we did indeed have multiple named women and every draft of this story we did indeed have a taped confession from Harvey Weinstein the point is that they ordered a hard stop to reporting they told me and a producer working on this that we should not take a single call they told us to cancel interviews the question for years has been why because every journalist at that institution didn't understand why and I think the book answers that question this was a company with a lot of Secrets is their point is their point bolstered by the fact that it took you about another 7 weeks to get this story in shape for The New Yorker that's inaccurate we lay out the timeline in the book it was briefer than that there was actually a very brief period of about a month where The New Yorker greenlit the story and then got it out as quickly as humanly possible but the argument has never been that the story had no room to grow that there couldn't be additional reporting it's that they halted reporting and this book explains why well that is the big question why I mean you lay out the suggestion that Harvey Weinstein was blackmailing NBC News multiple sources do say that and the way in which that's framed is very careful all of NBC's denials are in this book we fact check for many hours with them that said it is indisputable based on the evidence in this book that there was a chain of secret settlements at this company that were covered up with victims of harassment and assault some of them about Lauer some about others in the company this was a pattern it was concealed from journalists there and George that's bigger than NBC it's bigger than these executives these are not highly public figures the reason this reporting was important is because this is a pattern in media in law and politics institutions that conceal abuse of this type let people get hurt and that's something we should all be they allow it because they were afraid information about Matt Lauer was going to get it that is what the extensive conversations and transcripts and documents presented in this book suggest okay we're going to stick with us because we're gonna have more on Harvey Weinstein's attempts to intimidate you and the spying on you that's when we come back George hi everyone George Stephanopoulos here thanks for checking out the ABC News youtube channel if you'd like to get more videos show highlights and watch live event coverage click on the right over here to subscribe to our channel and don't forget to download the ABC News app for breaking news alerts thanks for watching

Channel: ABC News

Views: 714,145

Rating: 4.8020892 out of 5

Keywords: Ronan, Farrow, Catch, and, Kill, Lies, Spies, Conspiracy, Protect, Predators, NBC, anchor, Matt, Lauer, Sochi, Olympics, rape, allegations, sexual, assault, GMA, Today Show, NBC News, ronan farrow on gma

Id: iu6tYw55uUI

Length: 9min 4sec (544 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 11 2019