From The New York Times:
Kennedy Consulted With Scandal P.R. Firm While Seeking Cabinet Nomination
An associate of the firm, which has been accused of running a smear campaign against the actress Blake Lively, promised to suppress negative stories about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., records show.
When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was seeking the nomination to become health secretary, he consulted with a crisis communications firm that has been accused of running a smear campaign against the actress Blake Lively, according to records unsealed on Friday in Manhattan federal court.
The records show that a strategist associated with the firm, The Agency Group, promised in late 2024 to help suppress negative stories about Mr. Kennedy, boost positive ones and create an algorithm “to manage concerns” related to negative publicity.
It was not clear whether the firm, which is also known as TAG PR, performed any work on Mr. Kennedy’s behalf.
The documents were gathered by Ms. Lively’s legal team after she sued the actor Justin Baldoni, his production company, TAG and others in December 2024, alleging sexual harassment, retaliationand other claims stemming from disputes related to a film she had made with Mr. Baldoni.
The records include a deposition that quotes an email from the strategist, Jed Wallace, to a TAG executive in which Mr. Wallace explicitly describes pushing positive stories and burying negative ones about Mr. Kennedy. The same email also noted that Mr. Wallace believed positive coverage might draw the attention of President Trump.
“I need to be able to throw a ton of upvotes at the stuff that is rah rah rah for him, especially in conservative circles where it might get back to DJT,” the email said. In the same message, he added that he needed to “downvote everything that’s acting as a drag on him as part of our mandate.”
At the time, Mr. Kennedy had abandoned a bid to become president and was facing questions about his past behavior. He had earlier admitted to leaving a dead bear cub in Central Park, said that a parasitic worm had eaten part of his brain and been accused of once being photographed eating a barbecued dog.
A spokesman for Mr. Kennedy did not respond to a request for comment.
The unsealed filings also include testimony that indicates that Mr. Wallace and Melissa Nathan, a Hollywood publicist who founded TAG, helped create a website on behalf of Oren, Tal and Alon Alexander, three brothers convicted of a sex-trafficking conspiracy earlier this year. The website attacked several of the women who had accused them of rape, published their photos and described their claims as a coordinated extortion campaign.
In an email, a lawyer for Mr. Wallace, Joel Glover, said that neither Mr. Wallace nor his private public relations firm, Street Relations, had “ever been engaged to provide services for the individuals identified in the recent filings” and added that neither had created a smear website.
Ms. Nathan said in an email that Mr. Kennedy had been referred to TAG, but that they had never accepted payment from or formally represented him.
“We had a limited number of preliminary calls and did not proceed,” she said. “We were never engaged, never contracted and received no payment whatsoever in connection with him. Any implication otherwise is false.”
As for her work with the Alexander brothers, she said the court records showed “that any such work was done independently and ‘on the side’ by someone else.”
The court records also include a deposition with Katie Case, a former TAG employee, who said under oath that after the brothers were turned down as clients for TAG, Ms. Nathan and Mr. Wallace asked her to “connect with them to create a website in conjunction with their ongoing litigation.”
She added that “they asked me to perform work for the Alexander brothers” and “I received payment for work done in conjunction with Jed and Melissa.”
Other names mentioned in the unsealed filings include Johnny Depp, the actor whom Ms. Nathan represented in his defamation trial against the actress Amber Heard, and Amanda Ghost, who is involved in a protracted legal battle with the actress Rebel Wilson and who was characterized as a “target” of the firm’s tactics.
Ms. Lively’s legal case has focused in part on the actions of TAG, which has been accused of orchestrating a covert online smear campaign against Ms. Lively at the behest of Mr. Baldoni.
Ms. Nathan had tried to keep sealed several documents that reveal the names of her famous clients, court records show. But Ms. Lively’s lawyers argued that making the documents public was relevant to the case, to show that members of the crisis P.R. firm working with Mr. Baldoni were providing the same services to other prominent clients.
Debra Kamin is an investigative reporter for The Times who covers wealth and power in New York.
Santul Nerkar is a Times reporter covering federal courts in Brooklyn.
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