The Facebook Page, Saratoga Flash News reports it has audio recordings of several of Sara Bronfman’s phone calls.
One audio has been published on Facebook already, a call made by Bronfman to Steve Forbes, publisher of Forbes Magazine.
Flash News writes: “Sara Bronfman puts the squeeze on publisher Steve Forbes, in defense of her own reputation and that of NXIVM. A small example of a trove of audio/phone recordings that have suddenly emerged in advance of her upcoming civil trial.”
Hear the audio: https://www.facebook.com/SaratogaFlashNews/videos/466054754955580/
It is unclear which article she is complaining about, but it is clear it is not the first [and famous] story Forbes Magazine published in October 2003, Cult of Personality since she refers to an earlier story in her phone call with Forbes.
Steve Forbes
It may be Bronfmans and the Cult in 2006. Or the 2010 version of the story It might be the December 5, 2013 Forbes Magazine story, Can A Business Entrepreneur Save Libya? Or some other story.
Forbes published this cover story about Keith Raniere in October 2003.
It is amusing to hear Bronfman ask Forbes to confirm he is not recording the call, while she, in turn, secretly records him.
It is not known how Flash News got the Bronfman recordings. They were clearly not released by Bronfman. They may have been leaked by a former NXIVM member and/or employee of Bronfman. Here is a transcript of the phone call (My inserts are in brackets and highlighted).
Forbes
How are you?
Bronfman
Well. How are you?
Forbes
Fine. Thank you.
Bronfman
Good. So I apologize for my, for my having to call you on this matter. I guess that’s the best way to say it.
Forbes
[Laughs] No problem.
Bronfman
And you know, I have to, you know. I got the things that I have to say while I’m talking to you, about asking, that this is off the record, and not for attribution.
Forbes
Right, right.
Bronfman
On deep background and not to be reported. Can I get your agreement on that?
Forbes
[Laughs] Sure.
Bronfman
So I don’t know, you know, what authority you have within your magazine or not, but I got a call from my attorney several days ago, the day that I actually sent you the email, the kind of information that the reporter, that your reporter had about me was the kind of information that the only person who could have given it to her, and really she could have gotten it from, was either me or my attorney. And the reason why I was concerned and I wanted to contact you was because I’m, I’m, at the moment, very seriously speaking to my attorney about litigation with respect to this issue. So I didn’t, I don’t know, I don’t know who had the motive, and I don’t know exactly what’s going on. But it’s a really very serious legal situation between me and my attorney’s office, so I don’t want your magazine to get in the middle of that. And I think that the magazine is being used for something that doesn’t concern you and I don’t think it would be good so I don’t know if that’s valuable to you or not, but that was my concern.
Forbes
Right, right. Well, I appreciate the heads up on it and I’m sorry you have problems with your own attorney. That’s [laughs] a heck of a situation.
Bronfman
Yeah, it’s uh you know, I don’t know, what you do in these situations, or how you deal with them. And, you know, I was very moved by watching your panel when I came to the conference, and I thought it was very strange timing, you know, that. and, but I came to that [panel] I don’t know if you have done any research or any, you know, checked any background on me with respect to anything, but have you?
Forbes
No. [laughs]
Bronfman
There was actually another article written about me, and an organization [NXIVM] that I work with, in Forbes about two, maybe three years ago. And it was, and that’s actually why I wanted to meet with you, because I found that the things that you claimed that the magazine stood for and upheld were not being upheld in the kind of articles that were being written [about NXIVM]. And it was a very, it was a very personal matter for me, and it [the article] involved my family. I know that kind of stuff happens all the time. But it was an organization that I work with, a company [NXIVM] that actually builds entrepreneurs, and upholds the kind of values that you were speaking of, you and your brothers were speaking about upholding, was actually labeled a cult in the magazine and it was very destructive and it didn’t seem like something that you would want going on. I didn’t know if you knew that, kind of, you know, I don’t know what kind of control you have, or what authority you have in the magazine, but it just, it just didn’t seem like you would want those kinds of things going on, given what you said at the conference. So–
Forbes
Right. Right.
Bronfman
Do you have any thoughts on that? Or is that something that you think about or…?
Forbes
Yeah, I’ll have to dig the thing [the article] out and see who did the piece, and that kind of thing. But uh, how long have you been working with the organization?
Bronfman
Since 2002?
Forbes: Wow.
END
It seems that Bronfman was threatening Forbes with litigation. At times she appears to be appealing to him to live up to the high ethical standards she herself has and that which she heard him espouse at a panel at a conference she attended. She does not think it ethical that Forbes magazine refers to NXIVM as a cult.
During her inarticulate call, she does not get Forbes to agree to anything.
One of the dumbest comments she makes is, “I think that the magazine is being used for something that doesn’t concern you.”
Forbes Magazine is in the business of reporting matters that interest or concern their readers. A dispute between lawyer and client – and whatever else Forbes sees fit to publish — when the topic is a Seagram’s heir who is in a cult – would concern them.
I am not convinced the call was to relate that her lawyer might be leaking information, although it appears she believes it. The point might be captured in her: ” I’m… seriously speaking to my attorney about litigation with respect to this issue… It’s a … very serious legal situation between me and my attorney’s office, so I don’t want your magazine to get in the middle of that.”
She lets him know that she will put Forbes Magazine right into the middle of it via litigation.
Forbes thanks her for the heads up, declines to say much or commit to anything. As for the article, he merely says he would “dig it up” without promising to call her back. Then he spins and asks how long she has been with the “organization”.
She answers, since 2002.
He says, “Wow”
Calling NXIVM an organization his magazine repeatedly called a cult – and quoted her father Edgar Bronfman calling it a cult – was good manners. The “Wow”, I think was a genuine surprise.
Forbes Magazine reports on wealth, wealthy people, old and new wealth, and growing more wealth. They estimate annually the net worth of the wealthiest people in the USA and in the world and publish it as a list.
To see the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in the world caught up in a cult instead of following conservative, tried and true methods of preserving, and growing wealth, and comporting oneself as interested in such when you have it, might have occasioned the “Wow” as in “How stupid this little girl is, and how sad for Edgar.”
Flash News promises further audios: “Next up. Sara calls that lawyer and accuses him of the leak and in that process, we learned some things we didn’t need to learn.”
I’m sure Bronfman is not pleased that she carelessly left what promises to be embarrassing recordings in others’ hands and they are now in the hands of the media.
Viva Executive Success!
