Reply to Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So Esra Hudson's letter says:  "It is worth stating for the record, however, that each of the allegations in the Freedman Letter is unequivocally and demonstrably false."

That means Willkie Farr is denying all of the following allegations from Freedman's letter, and saying that none of them are true:

1. Ms. Lively requested that Taylor Swift delete their text messages;

2. Michael Gottlieb of Willkie Farr, counsel for the Lively Defendants, contacted a Venable attorney who represents Ms. Swift and demanded that Ms. Swift release a statement of support for Ms. Lively, intimating that, if Ms. Swift refused to do so, private text messages of a personal nature in Ms. Lively’s possession would be released.

3.  A representative of Ms. Swift addressed these inappropriate and apparently extortionate threats in at least one written communication transmitted to Mr. Gottlieb.

Looking at Freedman's wording, I'm wondering whether this could be a misunderstanding related to the protective order motion?  Like, did Gottlieb contact Venable asking whether they would be comfortable intervening as a third party to ask for AEO protections for third parties, because if they didn't, their text messages might get released without higher confidentiality?

That would make Freedman look like an idiot.  But I am struggling to understand how Hudson can confidently say that all of the above is false.  It's just weird, man.[/quote]

PP again raising again the possibility that the Gottlieb conversation, if it was really just a garbled mistranslation of something that truly happened, could have had something to do with the protective order fight.  The timing seems to work out.  Looking at the docket, that fight had been teed up in early February (2/3) when the court asked the parties to agree on a PO, and it was on [u]February 20th[/u] that Gottlieb filed his motion noting that the parties could not agree on the terms of a PO.  If Gottlieb had asked Swift to intervene in the PO discussions as a third party (sort of similarly to how Gottlieb is attempting to intervene in the Motion to Quash involving Venable in DC), those discussions with Venable would have been happening sometime around [u]February 14th[/u] when Freedman's conversation with his "source" occurred -- they would have been prepping for and setting the scene for the PO fight at least a week or two before Gottlieb filed his motion on the 20th.  Gottlieb could have been considering issues like, would it make sense for a third party to join our PO motion to defend their privacy interests, since if we lose their texts etc. would not be AEO?  The timing seems, to me, to work out for whatever "tip" Freedman got regarding Gottlieb talking to Venable to have potentially involved the PO hearing.  It seems [i]possible[/i], though admittedly a stretch.

It doesn't seem like Swift received her own subpoena involving the case this early -- the Venable DC motion notes that the Venable-represented third party (presumably, Swift) didn't get a subpoena until days after Venable's, which wasn't served until April.  So Gottlieb and Venable presumably wouldn't have had reason to communicate about that in February.

I also went back and looked at the PO hearing transcript.  It was interesting because Freedman tried to deemphasize the interests that third parties would have in protecting their confidential info in the case.  At one point Freedman even suggests that the only third interests involved in the case were one specific Sony representative, and Governski corrects him:  "Mr. Freedman made some reference about his attempt to limit the number of third parties.  Again, I am restrained by their own use of the confidential designation on their [exhibit].  But I will represent that there are dozens and dozens of third parties specifically named and identified even in -- I'll stop there.  Specifically named.  So he knows full well that there will be many third-party privacy interests implicated in his own requests."  (Freedman also does not seem to be aware of the fact that he had subpoenaed Lively's home security firm, so I'm not sure he's all there.)

This hearing happened on March 6, a few weeks after Freedman's alleged calls with his "source" started.  Gottlieb was in attendance at the hearing.  Freedman doesn't allude to these calls or conversations involving Gottlieb in any way that I can tell, besides seeming generally put out by the idea that a celebrity or high profile individual should be given any greater confidentiality protections for their personal information due to the public's greater interest in them.  No sly remarks about Gottlieb or concerns expressed about destruction of evidence or extortion, fwiw.  Not crazy if he was still determining the reliability of his "source," but I also might expect a wildcard like Freedman to make some aside here or there, and he did not afaict (besides his generally derisive attitude towards celebrities, his bread and butter lol).

link to the transcript though I bet no one cares lol! 
 [url]https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.634304/gov.uscourts.nysd.634304.122.0.pdf[/url]

Also, just to agree with PP on the Swiftie discussion that it would be hard to find a bigger villain than Scooter Braun in Swift's orbit.  I'm not sure Swift and Lively will ever be proper friends again, and the dragon comment was a real betrayal of trust imho, but imho anyone who is buds with Scotter is not getting invited to the party, either.  [/quote]

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