According to evidence presented in court, actress Amber Heard lied within the first moment she stepped onto the witness stand last week, saying: “I am here because my ex-husband is suing me for an op-ed I wrote.”
The Washington Post op-ed at the heart of the defamation lawsuit from actor Johnny Depp carried the byline, “By Amber Heard,” and Heard should be held responsible for putting her name on its contents, but the op-ed was anything but written by Heard.
In fact, in a disturbing breach of journalistic and nonprofit ethics, testimony in the tragic trial of Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard reveals Depp should put two other defendants on trial: the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Washington Post.
The two organizations raise millions of dollars on brand reputations that hinge on values of transparency, honesty, and ethics that they violated in writing and publishing the allegedly defamatory op-ed.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
On Nov. 6, 2018 Gerry Johnson sent an email to Heard’s publicist at the time, Jodi Gottlieb. It said, “I’d like your and Amber’s thoughts on doing an op-ed in which she discusses the ways in which survivors of gender-based violence have been made less safe under the Trump administration and how people can take action.”
After her colleague, Johnson, planted this idea, Robin Schulman, a communications strategist at the ACLU, took on the task of writing the “first draft” of the op-ed, according to Dougherty’s testimony and ACLU emails used as exhibits in court.
Over the next 23 days, through Nov. 29, 2018, the ACLU’s communications, legal, and development teams went back and forth with Heard’s PR team and lawyers on the details that would be shared about her relationship with Depp in the op-ed.
Two hours later, at 3:20 p.m., Schulman sent a new draft of the op-ed to Weitz to forward to Heard with the note: “I tried to gather your fire and rage and really interesting analysis and shape that into op-ed form.” Incredibly, in this game of deception, she said, “I hope it sounds true to you.”
She added, “Your lawyers should review this for the way I skirted around talking about your marriage.” Again, Heard did not even write her own draft.
From the office of communications strategy at the ACLU, Johnson offered some media outlets to pitch the piece: the Washington Post, the New York Times, USA Today, and Teen Vogue, which has become a go-to for hard-left content.
In an email, Weitz wrote to the ACLU team: “The goal is to get this out this week to capitalize on the tremendous campaign for Aquaman.”
According to court testimony, Weitz also said in an email that Heard wanted to get her temporary restraining order into the op-ed. “Is there an artful way to do that?” Weitz asked.
Washington Post published an op-ed in its “Opinions” section with the headline: “Amber Heard: I spoke up against sexual violence – and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change.” It included the words crafted artfully and deliberately by the team at the ACLU: “I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out.”
It was reckless, irresponsible, and defamatory to imply without a conviction that Depp had been a domestic violence abuser.
That’s journalism 101. And Heard, the ACLU, and the Washington Post are responsible for the headline that ran, alleging “sexual violence.”
No matter the verdict of the case, they need to fix their misconduct. To right their wrongs, they should do three things: apologize to Depp for publishing the fake “op-ed” that wasn’t even written by Heard, retract the “op-ed,” and donate to charities that actually fight domestic violence.