It's literal projection.
In a carefully orchestrated operation, extensive documentation of which I’ve
detailed on Substack, we now know from testimony and email evidence that the communications, “development,” “artist engagement,” and legal teams of the ACLU crafted, wrote, lawyered, and placed the salacious 765-word
Washington Post “op-ed” that implied Depp was a wife-beater with a 26-word assertion: “two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out.”
“The ACLU was a co-conspirator with Ms. Heard,” Depp’s attorney, Ben Chew, said during his arguments on Tuesday. “Of course, Mr. Depp chose not to sue them,” responded Heard’s lawyer, Benjamin Rottenborn. Heard’s and Depp’s PR firms didn’t comment further. The ACLU and Washington Post didn’t return several requests for comment.
‘Amber’s Ad’
Two slips-of-the-tongue during the recorded deposition of ACLU Chief Operating Officer Terence Dougherty
shared in court reveal exactly how the ACLU and the
Washington Post were complicit in a hit job against Depp.
In the first Freudian slip, 14:30:51 into his deposition, Dougherty explained that emails in Exhibit 41 documented ACLU staffers from its fundraising “development” department discussing “the placement of Amber’s ad…”
He quickly tried to correct himself: “Not ad. Sorry. I mean op-ed.”
No, he said it: “the placement of Amber’s ad.”
That’s what the “op-ed” was: “earned media,” as they call it in the media industry, for the ACLU, Heard, and the release of the Warner Bros. film, “Aquaman.”
Then, in the second slip, at 14:40:35 in his deposition, Dougherty explained how Stacy Sullivan, deputy director of editorial and strategic communications at the ACLU from September 2014 through October 2019, according to her
LinkedIn account, emailed Michael Larabee, the Post’s op-ed editor and top boss in the opinions section, then Larabee’s colleagues Michael Duffy and
Mark Lasswell when she got an automatic out-of-office reply from Larabee.
In the second slip, Dougherty said about Sullivan: “She reached out to him first about placing the ad” from Heard. This time, he didn’t even correct himself.
Phase 1: Building Credibility
Everyone involved in this situation used Depp’s cachet for private gain. The ACLU used Heard’s relationship with Depp to win “earned media,” which is much more lucrative and trustworthy than a paid advertisement. The Washington Post sold newspapers and got clicks. The ACLU got a donation. Heard earned status as a women’s rights activist.
In my 35 years of professional journalism, the last 20 of them writing op-eds, I have never before witnessed a more explicit example of deception.
