Hillary Clinton Shut Out Ronan Farrow As Soon As She Learned Of His Weinstein Investigation

Hillary Clinton distanced herself from Ronan Farrow when she found out the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist was investigating friend, megadonor, and serial sexual predator Harvey Weinstein.

The 31-year-old Farrow, who served as a special adviser to Clinton on global youth issues from 2011 – 2012, told the Financial Times that he and the former Secretary of State were close until 2017, when word leaked of his investigation that would ultimately bring down the movie mogul.

“It’s remarkable how quickly even people with a long relationship with you will turn if you threaten the centers of power or sources of funding around them,” Farrow told the Times. “Ultimately, there are a lot of people out there who operate in that way. They’re beholden to powerful interests, you become radioactive very quickly.”

Farrow’s reporting via the New Yorker in October 2017 won him a Pulitzer Prize and led to Weinstein’s fall from grace, as reported by the Daily Mail.

The findings of his investigation into Weinstein, published in The New Yorker in October 2017, won him a Pulitzer Prize and led to the movie mogul’s downfall while sparking the #MeToo movement. 

Clinton reportedly accepted more than $40,000 in direct political contributions from Weinstein dating back to when she ran for senator in 1999. He also encouraged others in Hollywood to contribute to her various campaigns.

The former secretary of state took five days to respond to the reports of Weinstein’s alleged abuses – eventually saying that she was ‘shocked and appalled’ by the revelations.

‘The behavior described by women coming forward cannot be tolerated,’ she said in a statement. ‘Their courage and the support of others is critical in helping to stop this kind of behavior.’  –Daily Mail

Farrow notes in his book, Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators, Clinton publicist Nick Merrill told him the Weinstein story was a ‘concern for us’ during Hillary’s 2016 run for office – and that the campaign withheld access to Clinton for an interview on an unrelated foreign policy book he was working on.

In Catch and Kill, Farrow recounted receiving a phone call from Weinstein directly, which he described in further detail to the Financial Times.

He said that Weinstein ‘went as below the belt as possible in terms of trying to dig up anything personal that he could to shake me in those moments’. 

The producer even referenced Farrow’s sister Dylan’s accusations against their father, telling him: ‘You couldn’t save someone you love, and now you think you can save everyone.’ 

Farrow said: ‘Every story I work on, there is an effort to weaponize anything and everything.’ –Daily Mail

While Weinstein has settled with many of his victims, he goes to trial in January on five charges related to two incidents from two different accusers. One says the movie mogul raped her in March 2013, and another says he forced her into giving him a blowjob in 2006. He has pleaded not guilty.

Last month Farrow took a swing at the Clintons when he said Bill Clinton was ‘credibly accused of rape’ by Juanita Broaddrick, who last year emanded an FBI investigation into her claim that the former President committed a “forcible, brutal rape” in a Little Rock, Arkansas hotel room on April 25, 1978 in which she says Clinton nearly bit her lip off. 

Broaddrick described the incident in a 2016 interview: 

And he grabbed me again, very forcefully. And started biting on my top lip. And this was extremely painful. I thought he was going to bite my lip off. And that’s when he pushed me back onto the bed.

…

I was completely dressed. I had a skirt and a blouse. He tore the waist of my skirt. And then he ripped my pantyhose. And he raped me. It was very vicious. I was just pinned down… I did not know what to do. I was so frightened. -Juanita Broaddrick, 2016

“Could Bill Clinton, if he had done what he did in 1998, survive today – or would his own party have thrown him under the bus?” asked Maher, to which Farrow replied: “I think that it is very important to interject that Bill Clinton is a different conversation,” adding “He has been credibly accused of rape. That has nothing to do with gray areas. I think that the Juanita Broaddrick claim has been overdue for revisiting.”