WC-2: Why did MIT hire two legal teams to run its Jeffrey Epstein investigation?
The MIT Corporation hired two separate law firms to for its jeffrey Epstein "investigation" and report.
"In addition to Goodwin Procter, the Executive Committee retained a second law firm, Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP, and specifically partners Scott Barshay and Claudia Hammerman, to advise the Committee in connection with the investigation. Paul Weiss participated in the investigation, reviewed all relevant documents, attended select interviews, and contributed to this Report."
"...to advise the Committee in connection with the investigation."
Obviously we will need to see the Paul, Weiss invoices to know exactly what is going on here. (And who paid the bill.) But perhaps we can piece together some clues by taking a look at Hammerman and Barshay's profile pages.
For Experience, Claudia Hammerman lists:
Hmmm. Anything jump out at you? And what about her recent Highlights?
"Claudia has represented Credit Suisse and the MIT Corporation in recent high profile investigations. Specifically, Claudia:
"A special committee"? We'll have to come back to that.
Scott Barshay is even more fascinating, and quite a big deal on Wall Street. When Barshay moved from from Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP to Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in 2016, dozens of newspapers and journals covered the news, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal ("Cravath Loses Top Deal Lawyer Scott Barshay to Paul Weiss" - WSJ)
Preparation and Endgame
I'm particularly fascinated by comments Barshay made during an interview with Citi podcasters in 2021, "Inside M&A – Citi’s M&A Podcast: M&A Considerations and the New Antitrust Paradigm," which seems specifically focused on the threat apparently represented by Lina Khan at the Federal Trade Commission .
When asked what advice he gives his clients under this "new antitrust paradigm," Barshay says that he only has two: 1) Preparation and 2) Endgame.
(6:53): “…you need to really focus on preparation and you need to focus on planning for the end game. So from a preparation perspective, doing the work upfront, even before you sign up a merger agreement or an acquisition agreement, looking at your emails, figuring out if there were problematic emails that are going to come out…"
Funny thing! This is exactly what MIT's legal team did in preparing for their MIT investigation. They hired an expert digital forensic team to analyze 600K MIT emails.
In the report, the authors say that it was Goodwin Procter that did this, but I'm fairly certain it was the Paul, Weiss team behind this email operation.
"Goodwin Procter also retained Stroz Friedberg, a risk management firm specializing in digital forensics and investigations, to perform forensic analyses of MIT electronic administrative databases... and to perform other investigative services."
I think thousands of people, including hundreds of reporters, have read this line, and absolutely no one seems to have tripped over it, or given it a second thought. If MIT said that it was okay, then gosh, it must be okay.
But let's back up for a moment.
The reason that the MIT Corporation hired the Paul Weiss law firm in the first place, the reason they are investigating Jeffrey Epstein at MIT and writing a report, is because of the New Yorker expose that appeared on September 6, 2019.
And that expose was driven by MIT whistle blowers, handing over exactly the kind of "problematic emails" that Scott Barshay was worried about.
"Dozens of pages of e-mails and other documents obtained by?The New Yorker?reveal that..."
So this is exactly what MIT's legal team is now trying to prevent.
Barshay and Hammerman have been hired by the MIT Corporation to run damage control, to contain the investigation, limit what is revealed, and reach the "Findings" that they have been hired to find.
In the next edition of the newsletter, I'll show exactly how they did this, but for now, just consider the corruption involved in searching 600K MIT emails, not to advance the investigation but to learn what evidence contradicted MIT's narrative, to protect the people that the MIT Corporation wanted to protect.
References
Sustainability ecologist
5 个月What is behind MIT's actions? Is it a single person? It often is, and that applies equally to vandalism of the local bus stop to corporate atrocities. One person persuades and cajoles others who need little encouragement but do not have the 'activation energy' to initiate the harmful activity themselves. To solve it requires people with backbone to stand up and say "stop". That could be lacking at MIT, and maybe it explains the compliance of these people?
Retired but still fighting for renewables!!
5 个月Coverup
Genocide in Gaza, Polycrisis Strategy, MIT Whistleblower
5 个月If you want to understand how deeply Lina Khan at the Federal Trade Commission has offended the M&A community, I highly recommend Scott Barshay's 2021 interview on the Citi podcast. https://www.citigroup.com/global/insights/inside-m-a-citi-s-m-a-podcast-m-a-considerations-and-the-new-antitrust-paradigm At one point the hosts asks Barshay what advice he has for clients trying to cope with the "new antitrust paradigm" and Barshay say that he only has two pieces of advice. 1. Preparation 2. And Preparing for the End Game. It two out that "preparation" means discovering by any means possible the emails that can potentially derail your objectives. And Preparing for the Endgame means being ready, willing, and able to sue the shit out of anyone who tries to stand in your way. As a means of gathering incriminating information that he needed to neutralize, Barshay's forensic search of 600K MIT emails must certainly be illegal. And now that I'm clear about my goal of submitting a full report to Senator Warren and 3 federal agencies, a lawsuit is not going to stop me from doing that. Bullying, bluffs, and lies, that's the legal strategy hold back the truth at MIT.