Dear HBO
Letters from counsel

See the letters from Church counsel sent to Alex Gibney and HBO related to allegations and falsehoods in Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief. All of these allegations and falsehoods became known to the Church only after the film premiere, because HBO stonewalled all efforts of the Church to be given a fair opportunity to address them in advance. Each letter clearly lays bare the details Alex Gibney refused to listen to.

March 19, 2015 Going Clear author Lawrence Wright’s “willful blindness and bigoted perspective” Read the letter from noted First Amendment and constitutional rights attorney Eric M. Lieberman, who has represented the Church for four decades, detailing that the premise held by director Alex Gibney and Lawrence Wright toward Scientology as a religion in HBO’s Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief is based on numerous falsehoods unsupported by the law that shows their transparent bias. Mr. Lieberman states, “[that] premise, upon which both Mr. Wright and Mr. Gibney rely, is both factually wrong and demonstrates a fundamental failure to understand the central concepts of religious liberty in the United States and, increasingly, the world. Indeed, its very statement discloses the closed mind, willful blindness and bigoted perspective of its author.”

Read the letter

March 18, 2015 Church counsel notes Going Clear director Alex Gibney keeps lying about religion’s exemption Read the letter written to director Alex Gibney’s attorney by Monique E. Yingling, Church counsel for more than 25 years, detailing the string of falsehoods he has been telling about religion’s tax exemption in appearances promoting the HBO film Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief. Ms. Yingling notes that there is substantial information in the public record contradicting Gibney’s claims as well as the myths created by disgruntled excommunicated individuals he relied upon as sources, noting to Gibney’s attorney that she has offered to walk his client through the materials so he would understand the issue. “Instead, he has chosen not to reply to me but to continue to repeat the lies of others and now to invent his own,” she stated.

Read the letter

March 16, 2015 Church human rights counsel on Going Clear as “pure propaganda” Read Church human rights counsel William Walsh’s letter to counsel for HBO and director Alex Gibney noting that Lawrence Wright’s book used as a source material for Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief is so steeped in falsehoods and bias that it is “not worth the paper it is printed on.” Likewise, Mr. Walsh states, Gibney’s film is “based upon the same fatal flaws that infected Wright’s book, present a false, biased picture of Scientology that amounts to nothing more than pure propaganda.”

Read the letter

February 27, 2015 Alex Gibney comments re IRS are a “vicious distortion” Read the letter written to director Alex Gibney’s attorney by Monique E. Yingling, Church counsel for more than 25 years, detailing false and malicious allegations the director has posted on the Internet and spread about the Church and the IRS to promote HBO’s Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief. Ms. Yingling says Gibney’s film is “replete with false and misleading statements and assertions about the relations between the IRS and the Church of Scientology and is nothing short of a vicious distortion of what actually occurred when the IRS recognized Scientology as a tax-exempt religious and charitable organization.” She notes that Gibney’s film conveniently fails to credit the Church for its significant role in the passage of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. “For that matter, much of the leading case law under the Freedom of Information Act arose from the Church’s use of that legislation in litigation with the IRS and other federal agencies, to the benefit of all citizens. These decisions have helped a generation of Americans, including writers, journalists and, yes, documentarians, to exercise greater scrutiny over the actions of the government.”

Read the letter

February 20, 2015 Church Counsel informs attorneys Going Clear relied on failed lawsuit Read First Amendment and constitutional rights attorney Eric M. Lieberman’s letter to counsel for HBO and director Alex Gibney noting that the case serving as the lynchpin for false allegations about confinement and child labor in Alex Gibney’s HBO film Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, as well as the Lawrence Wright’s book it was based upon, stem from a thoroughly debunked lawsuit tossed out of court on its lack of merit. Mr. Lieberman, who served as co-counsel on that case, states, “It is beyond imagination that a journalist and a film maker would produce works that repeat the allegations of disaffected former members as if they were true, without even mentioning that the federal courts clearly and unambiguously found those allegations to be without basis in fact.”

Read the letter