Hours after the CBS Board of Directors announced that two law firms had been hired to investigate CEO Leslie Moonves, Lisa Bloom shot back at the company’s choice of firms, calling the pair “Big Law defense firms” that would only give Moonves a “wrist slap.”
Bloom, a civil rights attorney who has often taken on female plaintiffs in harassment cases as clients, advised Harvey Weinstein briefly in October before resigning.
“As I predicted, CBS hires Big Law defense firms to investigate Moonves. These are the types of firms we fight on behalf of harassment victims every day,” Bloom wrote in a tweet on Wednesday. “They attack victims and defend perps and corporate inaction. Watch for a wrist slap outcome.”
CBS announced Wednesday evening that its Board of Directors had hired the firms Covington & Burling and Debevoise & Plimpton to conduct investigations into the network chairman and CEO following allegations of sexual misconduct. In a July story in The New Yorker, writer Ronan Farrow reported that six women were accusing the CBS chief of unwanted kissing and touching as well as threatening the careers of women who resisted advances.
The board also announced on Wednesday that it had formed a “special committee” to help facilitate the third-party investigation. Moonves is staying on as CBS’s CEO and chairman while the investigation proceeds.
Bloom resigned as a legal adviser to Weinstein, who also faced allegations of sexual misconduct, just two days after The New York Times published an expose on accusations about the film producer.
“I saw this as a unique opportunity to change the way these stories go,” Bloom told THR in an interview after her resignation about why she chose to represent Weinstein. “In the case of Donald Trump, in the case of Bill O’Reilly, in the case of Bill Cosby, it’s always the same playbook. When the story comes out, attack the accuser, deny, deny, deny, and fight like hell. Having represented a lot of those accusers, I know how damaging that is to them, how hurtful, how scary.” Bloom said she hoped that she could mitigate damage to the victims by having an accused person apologize immediately.
Still, Bloom said that she believed she was “wrong” to believe that an immediate apology would help victims in Weinstein’s case and that her reasons from withdrawing as an advisor were shrouded under attorney-client privilege.
Read Bloom’s tweet on CBS below.
As I predicted, CBS hires Big Law defense firms to investigate Moonves. These are the types of firms we fight on behalf of harassment victims every day. They attack victims and defend perps and corporate inaction.
Watch for a wrist slap outcome. https://t.co/gb9p5OUMcj— Lisa Bloom (@LisaBloom) August 2, 2018
