Lisa Bloom, daughter of celebrity attorney Gloria Allred, worked to raise money for women considering making sexual misconduct allegations against Donald Trump during the campaign season, according to a report from The Hill.
Documents reviewed by The Hill show Bloom attempted to earn commission from booking accusers for TV appearances, fundraising to pay off a mortgage for one would-be accuser, and fundraising to pay as much as $750,000 to another, who ultimately declined.
The Hill reports:
California lawyer Lisa Bloom’s efforts included offering to sell alleged victims’ stories to TV outlets in return for a commission for herself, arranging a donor to pay off one Trump accuser’s mortgage and attempting to secure a six-figure payment for another woman who ultimately declined to come forward after being offered as much as $750,000, the clients told The Hill.The women’s accounts were chronicled in contemporaneous contractual documents, emails and text messages reviewed by The Hill, including an exchange of texts between one woman and Bloom that suggested political action committees supporting Hillary Clinton were contacted during the effort.
Bloom responded, saying the intent was not to pressure women into coming forward.
…In a statement to The Hill, Bloom acknowledged she engaged in discussions to secure donations for women who made or considered making accusations against Trump before last year’s election.“Donors reached out to my firm directly to help some of the women I represented,” said Bloom, whose clients have also included accusers of Bill Cosby and Bill O’Reilly.Bloom said her goal in securing money was not to pressure the women to come forward, but rather to help them relocate or arrange security if they felt unsafe during the waning days of a vitriolic election. She declined to identify any of the donors.And while she noted she represented sexual harassment victims for free or at reduced rates, she also acknowledged a standard part of her contracts required women to pay her commissions as high as 33 percent if she sold their stories to media outlets.“Our standard pro bono agreement for legal services provides that if a media entity offers to compensate a client for sharing his or her story we receive a percentage of those fees. This rarely happens. But, on occasion, a case generates media interest and sometimes (not always) a client may receive an appearance fee,” she said.
Bloom briefly represented Harvey Weinstein when allegations first broke and stood by women accusing former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly of sexual harassment. Bloom also represented Kathy Griffin after Griffin’s photo shoot with a bloodied likeness of a decapitated Trump head led to a Secret Service investigation and intense public backlash. The two were later involved in a very public spat.
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