Hurricane Harvey Makes Landfall in Democrat Party

Former Obama Adviser Anita Dunn helped Harvey Weinstein strategize his response to the sexual harassment exposee.

Anita Dunn, a top Obama campaign staffer and former White House communications director, helped offer damage control advice for the Hollywood mogul....

Dunn was not paid by Weinstein for her help, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. But she did offer her PR advice, including in regards to a Sept. 23 Times story written by Megan Twohey. The story, about a controversy over Weinstein's work with AIDS charity amfAR, was thought to be a precursor to the big investigation posted on Thursday.

Sources said that Lanny Davis, former special counsel to Bill Clinton, has been central to the PR effort for Weinstein, who is a major Democratic donor. Dunn, for her part, is the managing director of SKDKnickerbocker, a Washington public affairs firm with deep ties to Democratic politics. She was communications director for Obama’s 2008 campaign and served briefly in his administration.

Harvey Weinstein's lawyer gave $10,000 to Manhattan DA after the DA failed to file sexual harassment charges against him. Oh. How cozy.

Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer delivered $10,000 to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. in 2015, in the months after Vance’s office decided not to prosecute Weinstein over sexual assault allegations, according to an International Business Times review of campaign finance documents. That contribution from attorney David Boies --- who previously headlined a fundraiser for Vance — was a fraction of the more than $182,000 that Boies, his son and his law partners have delivered to the Democrat during his political career.

Boies has done legal work for Weinstein since at least 2005, and his website at his law firm says his clients include The Weinstein Company.

David Boies was Gore's recount lawyer. Apparently he's been a big cash-money bestest friend of the DA who presides over the jurisdiction where a lot of his other Democrat friends live. That must all work out nicely for them.

Even CNN's partisan retard Chris Cillizza grasps that this is all a problem for Democrats. Not even a "Republicans pounce" headline. (Yet.)

And it's hard to see how Obama and the Clintons -- Weinstein is a long time pal of Bill and Hillary -- can avoid putting out statements condemning him for his behavior. That's especially true since Weinstein isn't really denying the Times story; he's threatening a lawsuit simply saying the news organization didn't give him enough time to respond.

But there's more to this story than simply issuing statements condemning Weinstein or returning his now-tainted money. These paragraphs from the Times story gets to that broader point:

"In interviews, some of the former employees who said they had troubling experiences with Mr. Weinstein asked a common question: How could allegations repeating the same pattern — young women, a powerful male producer, even some of the same hotels — have accumulated for almost three decades?

"'It wasn't a secret to the inner circle,' said Kathy DeClesis, Bob Weinstein's assistant in the early 1990s. She supervised a young woman who left the company abruptly after an encounter with Harvey Weinstein and who later received a settlement, according to several former employees."

Then there's this from New York magazine's Rebecca Traister: "I have been having conversations about Harvey Weinstein's history of sexual harassment for more than 17 years."

It seems like Weinstein's boorish behavior -- to put it mildly -- was an open secret in the circles he ran in. The prevailing sentiment when the New York Times published its piece was not "WOW!" but rather "Finally!"

That's important. If everyone around Weinstein knew about his inappropriate conduct around women, why were so many Democratic politicians willing to pal around with him and/or accept his money?

posted by Ace at 12:49 PM

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