How Ronan Farrow’s reporting on Weinstein led to the criminal case against Trump
While reporting on Harvey Weinstein, Farrow unearthed details of the National Enquirer’s plan to pay for damaging stories about Trump and then bury the stories — a practice known as “catch and kill.”
DAVE DAVIES, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I’m Dave Davies. Since the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial in Manhattan was announced, there’s been much discussion of its impact on the election, whether the conviction might be overturned on appeal and other issues. There’s another element to the story that’s gotten less attention. The role that the #MeToo movement and journalists reporting on the efforts to hide Trump’s alleged sexual encounters played in generating the criminal case against him.
Our guest is Ronan Farrow, whose reporting on the abuses of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein earned a Pulitzer Prize. Farrow was also one of several reporters who unearthed details of the so called catch and kill program in which owners of the National Inquirer paid sources with potentially damaging information about Trump for the exclusive rights to their stories, then buried them to protect the then-presidential candidate. The criminal case against Trump grew out of the argument that if the payments to kill the stories were made to influence the election, they could violate campaign finance laws. Farrow followed the Trump trial closely, and he joins us now to reflect on the meaning of the events.
