ABC executives are insisting they didn’t kill an explosive story about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein despite video evidence of a star anchor saying she had the story ready to go.
Amy Robach spoke with alleged Epstein victim Virginia Roberts in 2015. Robach was captured on a video recorded in August, around the time of Epstein’s death, and released on Nov. 5, saying, “She told me everything. She had pictures. She had everything. She was in hiding for 12 years. We convinced her to come out. We convinced her to talk to us.”
“It was unbelievable what we had. [Bill] Clinton, we had everything. I tried for three years to get it on to no avail, and it’s like these ‘new revelations,’ and I freaking had all of it,” Robach said. She also said that Buckingham Palace put pressure on ABC, with fears an interview with a royal couple would be blocked if the story was broadcast.
ABC said in a statement that the reporting on the story, the evidence for which Robach said was “solid,” didn’t meet its editorial standards. “We have never stopped investigating the story,” it said.
“We would never run away from that,” he said. “We would never kill a story about Bill Clinton. Or we would never kill a story about Prince Andrew. That’s what’s ridiculous on its face. That’s a great story. So if we could do that story, we would have done it!”
ABC has still not run the story.
He said Roberts’s team didn’t understand why ABC couldn’t run the story.
“I don’t remember any reason not to run this that makes sense to us, either as a manner of editorial policy or as a manner of law,” Pottinger said.
Reacting to the leaked video, he added: “I don’t think it does a great favor to ABC’s editorial policy, and their business policy.”
Still, he defended Robach and said his client “had a lot of confidence in them, and still does.”
Robach said in a statement about the leaked video that she was “caught in a private moment of frustration.”
“I was upset that an important interview I had conducted with Virginia Roberts didn’t air because we could not obtain sufficient corroborating evidence to meet ABC’s editorial standards about her allegations,” she said. On the tape, she insisted multiple times that the story had sufficient evidence to run.
Both Clinton and Prince Andrew have faced accusations about their links to Epstein.
Prince Andrew, who was once sixth in line to the throne, has also insisted he had no knowledge of Epstein’s nefarious activities.
Epstein also had associations with a number of other high-profile figures, including Bill Gates, Naomi Campbell, and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Stephanopoulus later said he should not have attended the dinner.
Stephanopoulus is among the media figures who reported on Epstein without noting his link to either Prince Andrew or Clinton.