Video of ABC Anchor Reveals Possible Epstein Cover-Up
ABC News defends itself against allegations that it had knowledge of Epstein’s pedophilic activities. (Flickr)
A video of ABC News anchor Amy Robach surfaced on November 5. In the video, she expressed her frustration about the network’s unwillingness to report her findings of Jeffrey Epstein’s pedophilic activities three years prior.
Self-described “guerilla journalist” James O’Keefe and his conservative website Project Veritas leaked the video on YouTube. The video shows Robach behind the anchor desk discussing a 2015 interview she conducted with Virginia Roberts.
In Robach’s interview, Roberts alleged that Epstein forced her to have sex with prominent men, such as Britain’s Prince Andrew, while she was a teenager. Roberts also implicated figures such as Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz and former President Bill Clinton.
“I’ve had the story for three years,” Robach said in the video. “I’ve had this interview with Virginia Roberts. We would not put it on the air. First of all, I was told, ‘Who’s Jeffrey Epstein? No one knows who that is. This is a stupid story.’”
Robach also stated that the implicated parties pressured ABC to suppress the stories. “Then the [British Royal Palace] found out that we had her whole allegations about Prince Andrew and threatened us in a million different ways. We were so worried that we wouldn’t be able to interview [Princess Kate and Prince William] that we… quashed the story,” she said. ABC has denied these allegations.
Robach also revealed her suspicion about the report that Epstein committed suicide, implying that he actually was killed. “So do I think he was killed? A hundred percent, yes I do,” she said. “He made his whole living blackmailing people.”
ABC responded that the Epstein story did not meet its editorial standard at that time and lacked corroborating evidence. The network claims that it continued to pursue the substance behind Roberts’ allegations but could not meet the division’s editorial standards.
Robach also released a statement of her own in which she pulls back on her statements seen in the video: “I was caught in a private moment of frustration.”
Robach also clarified her comments about the implicated parties. “My comments about Prince Andrew and [Roberts’s] allegation that she had seen Bill Clinton on Epstein’s private island were in reference to what Virginia Roberts said in that interview in 2015. I was referencing her allegations — not what ABC News had verified through our reporting,” she said.
This story follows accusations by NBC’s former correspondent Ronan Farrow that his former network blocked him from reporting on sexual assault allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein. Farrow eventually took his story to the New Yorker, where it earned a Pulitzer Prize.