Pretty disturbing story, and I wanna probably give you two warnings
starting with the first one, this is a difficult stories.
And I wanna give you a trigger warning in case stories of sexual misconduct,
details of sexual misconduct makes you uneasy.
With that said, let's get to this.
A new report from the New York Attorney General Letitia James reveals
the corruption and collusion between Les Moonves, a former CBS
executive who was ousted after reports of sexual misconduct came out,
and the Los Angeles police department who essentially provided cover for
him to prevent the story from getting out in the first place.
The details of how they work together back in 2017 and 18 to cover up
sexual assault allegations against Moonves are damning to say the least.
Now first,
here's a reminder of the disgusting assault allegations he was accused of.
But I do wanna give you a warning that the details here are difficult to even talk
about and the description is graphic and contains details of sexual violence.
Moonve's 's accuser,
Phyllis Golden-Gottlieb who has since died was a TV show development executive in
the mid 1980s when she worked with Moonves at Lorimar Productions in Culver City.
She told the Times that in a parking lot outside a restaurant,
he forcibly grabbed her head and slammed it into his crotch,
and then ejaculated into her mouth.
He was confronted with this, he immediately denied it,
said the allegations were false, and the Los Angeles County prosecutors didn't
bring charges against him because the statute of limitations had expired.
Now back to the report from Leticia James and
how the LAPD was involved in all of this.
The report comes five years after the LAPD captain tipped off CBS executives
telling them a woman had come to the department's Hollywood station to
report that Moonves had allegedly assaulted her in the 1980s.
Somebody walked in the station about a couple hours ago and
made allegations against your boss regarding a sexual assault.
The police captain said in a November 10th, 2017 voicemail message left for
CBS executive according to the report.
It's confidential as you know, but call me.
Now over the next few months, the LAPD met in person with Moonves and secretly
provided him and other CBS executives with status updates on the investigation.
Helping him out, giving him the inside baseball insider information he needed.
They also gave Moonves personal details about the alleged accuser.
Now the captain slipped CBS a copy of the accusers report, and
top CBS executives then began investigating the victim's
personal circumstances and that of her family, the report said.
And this is very common.
Harvey Weinstein did something very similar to his victims,
where if he thought there was any possibility that they would report him to
the police or if they had already accused him publicly,
he would have all of his opera researchers dig into these women's personal lives.
And then he would tell them look, we're gonna come out with this
terrible information about you, we're gonna destroy your reputation.
It was a form of intimidation to prevent these women from
coming forward or to recant their stories.
Now apparently the police captain had such a chummy relationship with Moonves and
CBS executives that he had been part of Moonves security detail for
the Grammy Awards for several years.
So he actually had a personal relationship here.
Both sides wanted to downplay the seriousness of
the woman's allegations which came in the heat of the MeToo movement.
CBS executives were assured by the captain, meaning the police captain,
that LAPD implemented controls to prevent news of the police report from leaking
to the press.
Hopefully we can kill media from PD then figure out what
complainant number one wants, Moonves wrote the captain and
a CBS assistant in one text message obtained by the attorney general.
And then eight months later, turns out LAPD couldn't really help him
because the public became aware of the allegations against Moonves.
Then in July of 2018, there was allegations from six more women who said
that Moonves assaulted or harassed them while they were working together.
So I've got more details.
This guy was so gross.
>> And just one side note, remember, Les Moonves was the CBS executives who just
openly said, Donald Trump, bad for the country, great for our ratings, right?
>> Yeah.
>> That's who that guy was.
>> And he said, bring it on Donald.
>> Yeah, and he did.
>> Yeah, well, Moonves knew a thing or two about that apparently.
So look, two parts of the story.
One is that when I was growing up, I didn't understand what cops were.
I misunderstood.
I thought they were here to protect us.
Now I realized, no, they're here to protect the rich and powerful, period.
And so, if you're still under that misimpression that they're here to protect
you, God bless you.
But look, if you're upper middle class, you're gonna be all right,
you're gonna be all right.
They generally come to help you.
And if you're rich, you're set.
They're basically your bodyguards that the rest of us all pay for, okay?
So that's why this guy, he probably thought, this is the most obvious thing
in the world, a powerful person is being accused of something they probably did.
I have to immediately help them.
So, I mean, if they hadn't gotten caught with the,
Ronan Farrow did a great story on Moonves, he had done it many, many times.
They had at least six women on the record with very similar allegations.
But if they hadn't found that all out, what would have happened?
The cops in LA would have covered it up for Moonves,
Moonves would have gotten away with it.
And the poor woman who walked in thinking the cops are gonna help her didn't
realize, no, the cops are not here to help you at all.
So if you report someone rich and powerful doing something bad to you,
very likely the cops will turn on you.
And by the way, they then handed over her personal information so
that CBS executives could figure out ways to smear her.
>> Yes. >> So by going to the cops,
she actively hurt herself.
>> And also prevent any personal damage that they might experience from let's say,
the stock of CBS going down after it's reported, right,
that their executive is sexually assaulting and
harassing people that he works with.
And that's part of the investigation as well.
So let's talk about that a little bit.
First, let me just note that after word got out
that Moonves had done this allegedly and that he had been fired,
[LAUGH] the CBS board fired Moonves September 9th of 2018.
That day, the LAPD captain emailed Moonves
underlining Ian Metrose saying, quote,
I'm so sorry to hear this news Ian, sickens me.
We worked so hard to try to avoid this day.
The captain sent a note to Moonves two days later, I'm deeply sorry that this
happened, I will always stand with you, by and pledge my allegiance to you.
So disgusting.
This guy victimized women that he was working with, and
this now retired LAPD captain that was based in Hollywood isn't
reaching out to the woman who was victimized brutally.
Reaching out to the perpetrator to say, I'm so
sorry you got fired after we worked so hard to protect you.
So who was this guy?
Commander Cory Palka was his name.
He's no longer with the LAPD.
He was able to retire before facing any consequences, and
he was the captain of the Hollywood station in 2017 and 2018.
Jame's report also by the way exposed other shady dealings with CBS.
The New York attorney general's report contained other findings including
how CBS's former chief communications officer, Gil Schwartz who has since died,
sold more than 160,000 shares of CBS in June of 2018.
As the company tried to contain the explosive allegations,
Schwartz sold the stock with CBS's approval netting more than 8.8 million
knowing that damaging information could come out.
And it did a few weeks later.
>> Yeah, they knew, and they cashed in on it.
>> Yeah. >> So that cop might not have been
able to save Moonves cuz he was such a serial predator.
But he did at least save a couple of CBS executives and
millions of dollars as they were able to catch out before any of you found out.
I'm gonna come back to the shareholders because that's the second large part
of this story.
But I just wanted to clarify a couple things.
First of all, the cop wrote the note to Ian Metrose who was Moonves' main
underling that he had communicated with earlier, they had coordinated.
Moonves sent Metrose to coordinate with the dirty cop.
Now I say dirty cop but LAPD is now pretending to be outraged by his actions,
but they're not, they're liars.
And so why do I say that they're liars?
Well, if you were truly outraged,
you're thinking about bringing charges against the cop,
there's no statute of limitations on that, right?
So obviously a super dirty cop who worked for the rich and powerful and
screwed over a poor woman who was coming in to report sexual assault, and
he took advantage of her.
No charges, I would go back and say, no, you don't get to retire, you're fired.
And I would try to recover money that he got in the meanwhile after he did these
acts that are clearly wrong.
Every dollar that he got from the department we should try to get
back, right?
Cuz he obviously was not here to serve and protect all of us,
he did the exact opposite.
Did LAPDU do any of that?
No, of course cuz they're a gang, and gangs look out for each other, and
they call us thin blue line.
Guys we're not against policing.
We've had a lot of fights with even the people on left wing about policing.
We want policing, but we want policing for all of us.
It's not too much to ask for.
Is it a police that are just hired security for the very, very, very rich and
powerful, but when you ask cops to provide security for
all of us to go, my feelings are hurt, my feelings are hurt.
I'm not gonna show up to help any of you.
When did you ever anyway, come on, get real.
Now back to the suit, Leticia James.
Okay, look, dude, attorney general in New York sticking up for
the little guy, is she?
>> No, the money went predominantly to the shareholders of CBS who are also
extraordinarily wealthy.
>> Yep. >> There might be a couple in there that
are middle class, but overall, [LAUGH] the great majority of them are very wealthy.
So don't get it twisted, it didn't go to the victims?
It never goes to the victims, no.
And I get why Leticia James did it, don't get me wrong.
>> It's easier to bring charges and to press forward on civil or criminal,
but especially in civil litigation for
shareholders cuz they have certain rights, they have very important.
>> [CROSSTALK] That's exactly right.
>> Yeah. >> But the problem is with
the system that says, shareholder get rights but you don't, right?
>> Yep. So I don't mind the shareholders having
rights, I think that's good.
I think the suit is good, credit to Leticia James for pursuing it.
>> But wouldn't it be nice if the rest of us had rights too?
>> Yeah.
>> [CROSSTALK] And she's now passed away, but was she ever gonna get money?
How about her family?
Of course not, only the beloved shareholders.