Jun 15, 2015, 05:25 am
(This post was last modified: Jun 15, 2015, 05:26 am by The_Abee. Edited 2 times in total.)
Former U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd — rewarded last week with a three-year extension of his contract to lead the Motion Picture Association of America — recently blasted WikiLeaks for its online posting of thousands of hacked Sony emails as a searchable database.
“This information was stolen from Sony Pictures as part of an illegal and unprecedented cyberattack,” Dodd said in April. “WikiLeaks is not performing a public service by making this information easily searchable. Instead, with this despicable act, WikiLeaks is further violating the privacy of every person involved.”
The WikiLeaks database reveals that one person definitely involved is Dodd, who was hired by the trade group of six Tinseltown studios after he retired from the Senate in 2010.
The emails, for example, show that when Variety in 2012 reported the news that the association had boosted Dodd’s annual pay to $3.3 million, movie business bigwigs repeatedly bounced a link to that story among themselves.
Similarly, at least one of the other emails in the WikiLeaks trove may have personally embarrassed the former five-term senator. In that message, the controller at Columbia TriStar, Kathryn Neilson, suggested to the executive vice president at Sony Pictures, Keith E. Weaver, that she was “not sure why I hired Dodd.”
But the emails most troubling to Dodd, a former Democratic National Committee chairman and Democratic presidential candidate in 2008, may be those that show how he raised campaign cash for politicians friendly to the studios, and most notably, for Republicans who had taken control of the House of Representatives.
In a November 2013 message to Michael Lynton, the chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures, for example, Weaver wrote to expect a call from Dodd about how the studios could covertly funnel campaign cash to the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Weaver explained that Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the Virginia Republican and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, “has established a new fundraising committee that would allow contributions to his effort WITHOUT giving to the NRCC (all of the studios have the same sensitivity on this as we did).”
“Dodd is likely to call you with this news, tell you that the studio should support with $40k each, and tell you about the tentative date/time for this fundraiser (likely a lunch on 11.22),” he added. “Our PAC can give $15k, the rest would need to come from individual execs.”
Dodd a few days later sent a slew of studio executives his own email on the upcoming fundraiser for the “Goodlatte Victory Committee.”
“The event is important and in the best interests of our industry,” Dodd wrote. “Time is of the essence and it is now incumbent upon us to work together to make this event a success. I need each of you to commit to attending the event and I would request that each studio raise $40,000 for the Victory Committee at this event.”
Other emails document Dodd’s role in a movie industry fundraiser for another Republican, Jim Bruning, the former attorney general of Nebraska who ran for the governor’s office there. A studio executive described Bruning as “one of the ag’s helping us with Google,” a reference to the trade group’s anti-piracy fight to block websites. Each trade association member was expected to make a $1,000 “corporate contribution,” he added.
The emails also connect Dodd to fundraisers for three Democrats, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and Rep. Karen Bass of California. Hosts at the Reid fundraiser were expected to give $5,000 each and Lynton reminded his underlings that Reed is a “personal friend” of Dodd’s. Weaver wrote that the fundraiser for Bass, a former speaker of the California Assembly with close ties to the Fox studio and with several other major studios in her district, was expected to be “bigger” than that for Reid, “both in terms of $$$ and bodies.”
The database also includes records that show Dodd touting his friendships with influential people that could help Hollywood. When Sen. Max Baucus of Montana was about to be nominated as U.S. ambassador to China, Dodd wrote Weaver that he and Baucus “were elected to Congress together almost 40 years ago and have remained close friends.”
“So from the perspective of the multitude of issues we at the MPAA have with China, I would anticipate Max to be someone who would be supportive, under appropriate circumstances,” he added.
Not all of Dodd’s friends, however, were well received by his studio colleagues, according to the emails.
Take Richard Friedman, a real estate developer who served as finance co-chairman of Dodd’s failed presidential bid as well as chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission, a federal urban planning agency. Friedman was consulting with the trade group as it considered redeveloping its Washington, D.C., headquarters a block from the White House — the site of lavish receptions and screenings for special guests where movie stars mix with politicians.
A Sony executive wrote that after Dodd sent out an email “expressing his half-hearted support” for a plan to convert the headquarters into a condominium project, an attached memo “stinks of input from Dodd’s real estate development friend … who we asked to sign a confidentiality and non-compete agreement but still have not received.”
http://www.journalinquirer.com/page_one/...3f508.html
“This information was stolen from Sony Pictures as part of an illegal and unprecedented cyberattack,” Dodd said in April. “WikiLeaks is not performing a public service by making this information easily searchable. Instead, with this despicable act, WikiLeaks is further violating the privacy of every person involved.”
The WikiLeaks database reveals that one person definitely involved is Dodd, who was hired by the trade group of six Tinseltown studios after he retired from the Senate in 2010.
The emails, for example, show that when Variety in 2012 reported the news that the association had boosted Dodd’s annual pay to $3.3 million, movie business bigwigs repeatedly bounced a link to that story among themselves.
Similarly, at least one of the other emails in the WikiLeaks trove may have personally embarrassed the former five-term senator. In that message, the controller at Columbia TriStar, Kathryn Neilson, suggested to the executive vice president at Sony Pictures, Keith E. Weaver, that she was “not sure why I hired Dodd.”
But the emails most troubling to Dodd, a former Democratic National Committee chairman and Democratic presidential candidate in 2008, may be those that show how he raised campaign cash for politicians friendly to the studios, and most notably, for Republicans who had taken control of the House of Representatives.
In a November 2013 message to Michael Lynton, the chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures, for example, Weaver wrote to expect a call from Dodd about how the studios could covertly funnel campaign cash to the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Weaver explained that Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the Virginia Republican and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, “has established a new fundraising committee that would allow contributions to his effort WITHOUT giving to the NRCC (all of the studios have the same sensitivity on this as we did).”
“Dodd is likely to call you with this news, tell you that the studio should support with $40k each, and tell you about the tentative date/time for this fundraiser (likely a lunch on 11.22),” he added. “Our PAC can give $15k, the rest would need to come from individual execs.”
Dodd a few days later sent a slew of studio executives his own email on the upcoming fundraiser for the “Goodlatte Victory Committee.”
“The event is important and in the best interests of our industry,” Dodd wrote. “Time is of the essence and it is now incumbent upon us to work together to make this event a success. I need each of you to commit to attending the event and I would request that each studio raise $40,000 for the Victory Committee at this event.”
Other emails document Dodd’s role in a movie industry fundraiser for another Republican, Jim Bruning, the former attorney general of Nebraska who ran for the governor’s office there. A studio executive described Bruning as “one of the ag’s helping us with Google,” a reference to the trade group’s anti-piracy fight to block websites. Each trade association member was expected to make a $1,000 “corporate contribution,” he added.
The emails also connect Dodd to fundraisers for three Democrats, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and Rep. Karen Bass of California. Hosts at the Reid fundraiser were expected to give $5,000 each and Lynton reminded his underlings that Reed is a “personal friend” of Dodd’s. Weaver wrote that the fundraiser for Bass, a former speaker of the California Assembly with close ties to the Fox studio and with several other major studios in her district, was expected to be “bigger” than that for Reid, “both in terms of $$$ and bodies.”
The database also includes records that show Dodd touting his friendships with influential people that could help Hollywood. When Sen. Max Baucus of Montana was about to be nominated as U.S. ambassador to China, Dodd wrote Weaver that he and Baucus “were elected to Congress together almost 40 years ago and have remained close friends.”
“So from the perspective of the multitude of issues we at the MPAA have with China, I would anticipate Max to be someone who would be supportive, under appropriate circumstances,” he added.
Not all of Dodd’s friends, however, were well received by his studio colleagues, according to the emails.
Take Richard Friedman, a real estate developer who served as finance co-chairman of Dodd’s failed presidential bid as well as chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission, a federal urban planning agency. Friedman was consulting with the trade group as it considered redeveloping its Washington, D.C., headquarters a block from the White House — the site of lavish receptions and screenings for special guests where movie stars mix with politicians.
A Sony executive wrote that after Dodd sent out an email “expressing his half-hearted support” for a plan to convert the headquarters into a condominium project, an attached memo “stinks of input from Dodd’s real estate development friend … who we asked to sign a confidentiality and non-compete agreement but still have not received.”
http://www.journalinquirer.com/page_one/...3f508.html
