Ronan Farrow on Matt Lauer’s denial of rape allegation l ABC News

and now we move on to that explosive new book by Ronan Farrow, capture and death documents, Ferris report on the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the

rape

accusation against Matt Lauer. Ronan is here for his first television interview about the book that has already drawn heated

denial

s from Lauer. and NBC News but Lindsey Davis starts with the details good morning Lindsey good morning George your explosive reporting earned Ronan Farrow a Pulitzer Prize now in his new book he names names and reveals sources of his investigation into Harvey Weinstein it reads like a Hollywood script of Espionage and Sabotage, a high-stakes game from Wacom about Weinstein's spies, investigators and allies allegedly worked clandestinely to silence witnesses, ruin reputations and intimidate whistleblowers in Ronan Pharaoh's upcoming new book, Catch and Kill the Reporter investigation details what he claims were powerful attempts to quell the report that ultimately sparked the explosive scandal and the me-a movement in August 2017.

Pharaoh says he thought he had enough of a story that includes audio recorded in Weinstein secret provided by an alleged victim willing to be called Amerigo Tiaras. Pharaoh also says that he had an accuser. shadowy Anonymous corroborates witnesses and believed it could convince some accusers to confess, but rather than air the story or encourage more reporting, Farrow writes that NBC

news

executives told him to pause all reports, canceled interviews and, according to Pharaoh NBC News. President Noah Oppenheim questioned whether Harvey Weinstein's comments on the tape were even

news

worthy, reportedly saying: I don't know what proves he was trying to get rid of her.

People say a lot of things when they try to get rid of a girl like her. That Harvey Weinstein grabbed a lady's breasts a couple of years ago is not national news. The pharaoh continued and eventually brought his reporter to the New Yorker magazine. Farrell says Noah Oppenheim told him he could take it somewhere else saying we can't run right now. "Vaya con Dios" story won a Pulitzer Prize this week in a memo to NBC News staff. Chairman Andy Lack maintained that when Farrell submitted his report to NBC he did not have a single Damar witness on record to say that Pharaoh simply did not have a story that met our broadcast standard then, with the me2 movement in full swing, another stunning fall breaking news overnight Matt Lauer fired for what NBC said was sexual misconduct the former NBC employee behind the complaint Brooke Nevels spoke to Pharaoh for the first time accusing Lauer in graphic detail of raping her in a hotel room while at the 2014 Sochi Olympics on a producing assignment for Meredith Vieira In an open letter this week, Lauer strongly denies the

allegation

, saying it was mutual and completely consensual, and calls Nevile a fully enthusiastic and willing partner. to go then had several more consensual sexual encounters in his New York City apartment and his office at 30 Rock until ending what he called an affair, says Pharaoh Nevels acknowledges the encounters and this week responded to Lauer, saying his statement was the classic victim-shaming and saying the shame in this story belongs to him, an NBC spokesperson told us this week that Matt Lauer's conduct was appalling, horrible and reprehensible, as we said at the time, which is why we fired him Within 24 hours of learning of the complaint, our hearts break again for our colleague George.

Ok, Lindsey, thanks and now for the first broadcast of him, I interviewed the author of Catch Him Kill Running Fair Run and thanks for coming to be here this morning, let's see, let's start with that Matt Lauer

denial

. He detailed an angry denial that he categorically calls out the story to him. False, this was a consensual affair, the

rape

allegation

is defamatory, it is designed to sell a book and obviously in the book we included his exact thoughts without violating any basic rules, we have had very strict rules about what we can reveal about the conversations we had.

In many of the book's sources, the thoughts of each person against whom a serious accusation is made are fully represented. You're not talking about anything new. I can't answer specific questions about that, but I can say that Matt Lauer is thinking about what is presented in this The letter is in the book and I think this young woman, journalist Brooke Nevels, presents what I found to be a persuasive response to that The facts of her case, supported by documentation and eyewitnesses, suggest that there was an encounter here that she has consistently described as non-consensual and she says, regardless of what happened before and after that and how he interpreted her saying no. to a physical act, so if he or his allies were to say that you, in fact, verified those claims exhaustively, fact-checked as with everything In this book, let's look at how NBC handled this as well.

They say they first heard about this in November 2017. It was a fire. We just saw that within 24 hours, this is what a Tilak said. Any suggestion that we knew before that night or tried to cover up any aspect of Lauer's conduct, is absolutely false and offensive and they say they did something as soon as they knew about it, so this is an important point, George, this is not what which the report in the book suggests, we spent several years reporting. We verified this exhaustively and what we show in this book with a paper trail of documents is that there were multiple secret agreements and non-disclosures with women and those winds of fact, weren't they both non-disclosures?

Years earlier, over a period of six to seven years, a period in which NBC had had prior agreements, there were seven confidentiality agreements, several of them were with Matt Lauer's accusers, this is years before this incident with Brooke Novels and the firing and I spoke to senior executives who were told about those previous incidents with Matt Lauer, indi, they definitely know this, so when they say this, it is the first time they are hearing about any accusations about Matt Lauer, after the fact that We are after November 27, 2017, I will let the facts in the book speak for themselves, but I think it is hard to believe, when you look at the documents and records, Brooke or her lawyers used the words rape or sexual assault when they came to NBC.

We are very careful to lay out exactly what. happened and what she said when she came to them, she unambiguously described rape or sexual assault, like many trauma victims, she was not ready to use those words, so her lawyer did what is very often done in investigations criminals in cases like this, where someone complains. that a company asked a clear series of questions that got answers that without a doubt said that this was not consensual and even stopped the procedure to say that this was not consensual we want to make clear the other big accusation that the NBC book prevented you from finishing your report on Harvey Weinstein and ELAC says this is a fundamentally false image.

Not Oppenheim. I have to write my own book to refute all the ways Ronin intentionally distorts our interactions. Their basic point is that you were assigned the story but you didn't come back with it. one that met his standards, included and in the prosecution file. Look. I trust the book report. I'll let it stand on its own, but the point here is not that we effectively had multiple women named and every draft of this. story, we actually had a recorded confession from Harvey Weinstein, the point is that they ordered a complete stop to reporting, they told me and a producer who worked on this that we should not take a single call, they told us to cancel interviews, The question for years has been The reason was because all the journalists at that institution did not understand why and I think the book answers that question.

This was a company with many secrets. Your point is reinforced by the fact that it took you another 7 weeks to achieve it. this story fit for The New Yorker that's inaccurate, we established the timeline in the book, it was shorter than that, there was actually a very brief period of about a month where The New Yorker greenlit the story and then published it as quickly as humanly possible. possible, but the argument has never been that the story had no room to grow, that there could be no additional reporting, it's that they stopped reporting and this book explains why, well, that's the big question, why do I mean that You raise the suggestion that Harvey Weinstein was blackmailing NBC News, multiple sources say that and the way it's phrased is very careful.

All of NBC's denials are in this book. We verified the facts for many hours with them and they said that, based on the evidence in this book, it is indisputable that there was a chain of secret agreements in this company that were covered up with victims of harassment and assault some of them on Lauer others on others in the company this was a pattern that was hidden from the journalists there and from George that's bigger than NBC it's bigger than these executives These are not very public figures, the reason this report was important is because this is a pattern in the In the media, in law and politics, institutions that hide abuses of this type allow people to get hurt and that is something we should all be.

They allowed it because they were afraid of the information. about Matt Lauer was going to understand it, that is what the extensive conversations, transcripts and documents presented in this book suggest. Okay, let's stick with us because we will have more information about Harvey Weinstein's attempts to intimidate him and the spying. that's when we come back George, hello everyone, George Stephanopoulos, thank you for visiting the ABC News YouTube channel. For more videos, highlights and live event coverage, click right here to subscribe to our channel and don't forget to download the ABC News app to receive breaking news alerts.

Thanks for watching.