By Peggy Daley ( December 4, 2017, 12:55 PM EST) -- The actions of the private investigators retained on behalf of Harvey Weinstein have dominated recent headlines. In a New Yorker article titled "Harvey Weinstein's Army of Spies," [1] reporter Ronan Farrow detailed the lengths to which investigators from a little-known company called "Black Cube" went to obtain information to tarnish the reputations or undercut the testimony of women accusing Weinstein of sexual assault and harassment. According to the article, Black Cube, an Israeli company made up in part by former Mossad intelligence officers, used false identities, set up corporate fronts and provided false cover stories in order to ingratiate themselves with Weinstein's accusers. Black Cube operatives also allegedly gave false information to journalists working on the story. Providing false information in an effort to obtain information that would otherwise not be forthcoming is known in investigative parlance as "pretexting." It's more commonly known as lying....