DOCUMENTARY:
ELIZABETH II
THE PARASITIC AND CORRUPT
HOUSE OF WINDSOR
AND THE WINDSOR
DICTATORSHIP’S PARTNERSHIP
WITH GLOBAL MUSLIM
DICTATORSHIPS.
ABC anchor: British royals
‘threatened us a million different ways’ over Prince Andrew/Jeffrey Epstein
story
If royals threatened to withhold interviews with Prince
William and Kate Middleton, it wouldn’t be the first time they have been
accused of trying to protect Andrew in the Epstein scandal.
By MARTHA
ROSS | mross@bayareanewsgroup.com |
Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: | UPDATED:
ABC News is facing
difficult questions Tuesday over anchor Amy Robach’s hot mic complaints that
the network killed her investigative story about Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged
trafficking of underaged “sex slaves” and his circle of rich and powerful
friends, including Prince Andrew.
But ABC is not the only
institution that’s been embarrassed by the leaked video clip of Robach, which
was released by the right-wing group Project Veritas.
The British royal family
will once again face questions and backlash over Andrew’s decade-long
association with Epstein. That’s because Robach said “the palace” —
presumably Buckingham Palace — put pressure on the network to suppress the
story.
Robach said the story was
to include a 2015 interview with Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of Epstein’s
alleged “sex slaves.” Giuffre, 35, has claimed in a lawsuit and in interviews
that she was forced to have sex with Andrew three times in 2001 when she was
17.
Robach said the palace
threatened to deny the network interviews with star royals, like Prince William
and Kate Middleton, if it aired her report.
“I’ve had this interview
with Virginia Roberts … we would not put it on the air,” Robach said on camera.
“First of all, I was told ‘Who’s Jeffrey Epstein?’ … Then the palace found out
that we had her whole allegations about Prince Andrew and threatened us a
million different ways.”
“We were so afraid we
wouldn’t be able to interview Kate and Will that this also quashed the story,”
Robach continued. She added that attorney Alan Dershowitz also pressured
ABC to kill the story.
On Tuesday, ABC scrambled to address Robach’s complaints. The video
was recorded in late August in the network’s Times Square studio, the Associated Press reported.
Project Veritas said the video came from “an ABC insider.”
In a statement to the
Associated Press, ABC said it did not air Giuffre’s interview three years ago
because it did not meet the network’s standards and because it lacked
sufficient corroborating evidence. But ABC insisted that the network “never
stopped investigating the story” and is preparing a two-hour documentary
and six-part podcast on Epstein to air in the new year.
Robach, who co-anchors
“20/20” and reports for “Good Morning America,” attempted to walk back from her
on-camera complaints. In a statement, she said she was “caught in a private
moment of frustration” because her story never aired. She agreed that the story
didn’t meet the network’s standards in 2015.
“The interview itself,
while I was disappointed it didn’t air, didn’t meet our standards,” Robach said
in her statement. “In the years since no one ever told me or the team to stop
reporting on Jeffrey Epstein, and we have continued to aggressively pursue this
important story.”
But in the video, Robach
expressed confidence that the network had corroborating evidence. She also was
visibly exasperated as she said, “I tried for three years to get (the
interview) on to no avail and now it’s coming out and it’s like these ‘new
revelations’ and I freaking had all of it.”
Robach is likely
referring to revelations that have emerged since Epstein’s Aug. 10 death in a
Manhattan jail where he was being held on new sex trafficking allegations.
The New York City Medical
Examiner has ruled Epstein’s death a suicide and has rejected a statement last
week by a former New York City medical examiner that findings in Epstein’s
autopsy were “more consistent” with homicide. In the video, Robach expressed
confidence that Epstein’s death was a murder, not a suicide.
The controversy over
Epstein’s death inspired the hashtags #EpsteinSuicideCoverUp and
#EpsteinCoverup, the latter of which Project Veritas promoted in its Tuesday
tweets about the Robach clip.
According to the
Associated Press, Project Veritas is known for its efforts to try and embarrass
mainstream media outlets, often sending undercover reporters to catch employees
making statements that display an anti-conservative bent.
But AP noted that it
needed no such help with the Robach video, which also raised comparisons to
reporter Ronan Farrow’s accusations that NBC News discouraged his
reporting on Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s sexual misconduct. After Farrow
took his story to the New Yorker magazine, the Weinstein revelations helped
spark the #MeToo movement.
In an interview with NPR in August, Giuffre
talked about her 2015 interview with ABC and expressed confusion about it never
aired. NPR reported that ABC never explained its editorial reasons for not
airing the interview.
“I viewed the ABC
interview as a potential game changer,” she said. “Appearing on ABC with its
wide viewership would have been the first time for me to speak out against the
government for basically looking the other way and to describe the anger and
betrayal victims felt.”
The release of the video clip comes as Andrew,
59, has faced intensified scrutiny over his friendship with Epstein. David
Boies, an attorney representing Guiffre, told Vanity Fair in July that the
royal family has actively worked to “discredit” her
allegations against Andrew, who is said to be the queen’s favorite son.
Vanity Fair also reported
that Andrew’s situation could have been a factor in the lenient plea deal and
13-month jail sentence Epstein received in 2008, when he originally was charged
with sexual abuse of minors.
There is speculation that
the deal, crafted by former federal prosecutor Alex Acosta (who resigned as
Donald Trump’s labor secretary) was at least in part designed to help protect
Andrew, Vanity Fair said. According to one theory, George W. Bush’s White
House directed Acosta not to prosecute Epstein to protect Andrew on behalf of
the British government, then the U.S.’s closest ally in the Iraq war.
Andrew and Buckingham
Palace have repeatedly denied he had sex with Guiffre or that he knew of
Epstein’s illegal activities.
·
Buckingham palace also declined to directly address claims
Robach made in the video about the royal family putting pressure on ABC. In a statement to People magazine, a
spokesperson only said, “This is a matter for ABC.”
Buckingham
Palace also has tried to downplay his friendship with Epstein, which Andrew
said ended in 2010 when he last visited Epstein at his Manhattan mansion.
During that December 2010 visit, Andrew and
Epstein were photographed walking together in Central Park. Reports also say
the prince enjoyed the financier’s lavish hospitality, including an intimate
dinner party thrown in his honor with such media celebrities as ABC TV
anchor George Stephanopoulos, as well as Katie Couric and Charlie Rose.
Comedian Chelsea Handler and
Documentary:
Prince Andrew Took Part in Jeffrey Epstein’s Orgy with Nine Underage Girls
Ian
Forsyth/Getty Images
21 Oct 201939
2:41
A documentary that aired in the United Kingdom on Monday includes
claims that Prince Andrew and the now-dead sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein took
part in an orgy with nine underage girls on Epstein’s private-island estate.
While the royal long dubbed “Randy
Andy” has strenuously denied being involved in his friend’s sex ring, the
salacious details already leaking from “The Prince and the Pedophile” have only
intensified the spotlight on the friendship that Andrew has admitted was a
“mistake and an error.”
The special by Channel 4’s
“Dispatches” is taking a deep dive into the pair’s close ties — including the
claims in 2015 court papers that they had group sex on Epstein’s so-called
“orgy island” of Little St James, according to the Times
of London.
“The third time I had sex with Andy
was in an orgy on Epstein’s private island in the US Virgin Islands. I was
around 18 at the time,” longtime accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre wrote in the
Florida court docs.
“Epstein, Andy, approximately eight
other young girls and I had sex together,” Giuffre said in the Post article. “The
other girls all seemed and appeared to be under the age of 18 and didn’t really
speak English.”
“Epstein laughed about the fact they
couldn’t really communicate, saying that they are the ‘easiest’ girls to get
along with,” Giuffre said.
“‘Dispatches’ will prove Andrew met
Epstein at least 10 times during their 12-year friendship and the royal
sometimes stayed with him for several days, according to the Times,” the Post reported.
Epstein, who committed suicide last
summer in a Manhattan jail cell, saw Prince Andrew as his most valuable
“trophy” of the high-profile people he liked “collecting,” socialite Lady
Victoria Hervey said in the documentary
titled, “The Prince and the Pedophile.”
The Times is cited as the source in the Post report
on “Dispatches” obtaining Giuffre’s medical records that confirm her abuse
claims, including vaginal bleeding that lasted for weeks.
“Without going into the details of
the sexual activities I was forced to endure, there were times when I was
physically abused to the point that I remember fearfully thinking that I didn’t
know whether I was going to survive,” Giuffre wrote in a legal statement from
2015, according to the Times.
“At no stage during the limited time
I spent with him did I see, witness or suspect any behavior of the sort that
subsequently led to his arrest and conviction,” Prince Andrew has said.
“Buckingham Palace has also said
that ‘any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categorically
untrue,’” the Post reported.
Jeffrey Epstein 'tried to
SUE Sarah Ferguson for calling him a paedophile' as she scrambled to cope with
the fallout over £15K gift from ex-husband Prince Andrew's former friend to
help clear her debts
·
The Duchess of
York was threatened with legal action by Jeffrey Epstein
·
It
came after she publicly called him a pedophile it has been claimed
·
She made the
statement in an interview after it emerged she had accepted £15,000 from her
ex-husband's former friend to help clear a personal debt
·
The
Duchess of York was threatened with legal action by disgraced financier Jeffrey
Epstein after she publicly called him a paedophile, it has been claimed.
Sarah
Ferguson made the statement in a 2011 interview after it emerged she had
accepted £15,000 from her ex-husband's former friend to help clear a personal
debt.
Epstein
had given the money to one of Fergie's assistants at the request of Prince
Andrew.
But the
payment, which came after Epstein's release from prison over child sex
offences, caused a furore when it became public.
+2
·
Sarah Ferguson (pictured) made the statement
in a 2011 interview after it emerged she had accepted £15,000 from her
ex-husband's former friend to help clear a personal debt
The duchess subsequently accepted she had made a 'gigantic error of
judgement' and offered a 'heartfelt' apology.
Speaking to the Evening Standard she said: 'I deeply regret Jeffrey
Epstein became involved in any way with me. I abhor paedophilia and any sexual
abuse of children and know that this was a gigantic error of judgment on my
behalf.
'I am just so contrite I cannot say. Whenever I can I will repay the
money and will have nothing ever to do with Jeffrey Epstein ever again. What he
did was wrong and for which he was rightly jailed.'
According to sources, Epstein – clearly in denial about the scale of his
crimes – was incensed by her suggestion he was a paedophile.
The billionaire was convicted in 2008 of procuring an under-age girl for
prostitution and served 13 months in jail.
The billionaire (pictured) was convicted in
2008 of procuring an under-age girl for prostitution and served 13 months in
jail
He was facing numerous further charges of sex-trafficking earlier this
year when he killed himself in his cell in New York.
In 2011 it is understood Epstein hired an unnamed firm of lawyers to sue
the duchess, unless she retracted her media statement.
At the same time he took on the services of crisis management PR firm
Sitrick & Co to deal with the scandal over his friendship with Andrew, who
was infamously photographed with the shamed billionaire following his release
from prison.
The firm, which confirms it provided 'consulting advice and public
relations services concerning Epstein's relationship with Prince Andrew',
advised him how to handle the media storm.
As a result of the outcry, the Queen's son was forced to publicly
apologise and lost his job as a roving UK trade ambassador. In 2014 Sitrick
sued Epstein for £65,000 in unpaid fees relating to their services.
In recently re-surfaced court papers, which meticulously chart what the
PR firm did on Epstein's behalf, it includes a reference on March 15, 2011 to
'work on statement for Fergie'. Two days later, on March 17, 2011, it adds
'revise suggested statement for Fergie'.
A
source close to the duchess said yesterday that the 'for Fergie' reference
relates to a statement drafted for Epstein which he was trying to get her to
release.
The
source added: 'Epstein tried to force the duchess to release a statement
retracting her suggestion that he was a paedophile which he had drafted by his
PR firm.
'Epstein
was very unpleasant and very aggressive. She stuck to her guns despite the
pressure being put on her and refused to comply.'
Eventually
Epstein halted his threat of legal action.
+2
·
Virginia Roberts photographed with Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell
in early 2001. Virginia Roberts has accused Andrew of having sexual
relations with her when she was under-age, something Buckingham Palace and the
prince have strenuously denied
Virginia Roberts on Prince Andrew: He knows
what he did
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Since
his death, which led to all criminal charges being dropped, several of his
alleged victims are now suing his estate for damages.
They
include Virginia Roberts, who has also accused Andrew of having sexual
relations with her when she was under-age, something Buckingham Palace and the
prince have strenuously denied.
Andrew
has also tried to distance himself from Epstein's activities, saying in a
statement last month: 'At no stage during the limited time I spent with him did
I see, witness or suspect any behaviour of the sort that subsequently led to
(Epstein's) arrest and conviction.'
'Sex slave'
Virginia Roberts 'went to hospital with internal bleeding following Jeffrey
Epstein orgies' - as she claims paedophile 'graded' her performance after she
slept with Prince Andrew
·
New documentary airs claims Virginia Roberts
had sex with Andrew after photo
·
She said in a court document that she felt
'graded' by Epstein after the meeting
·
Programme also unearthed medical records that
appear to support abuse claims
Medical
records show Jeffrey Epstein's alleged victim Virginia Roberts was admitted to
hospital in New York at the time she says she was suffering regular sexual
abuse.
The
evidence against Epstein - and details of his friendship with British royal
Prince Andrew - was set out in a Channel 4 documentary last night.
It
re-examined Virginia Roberts's court evidence from 2015 in which she told how
she was trafficked by Epstein and forced to have sex with his many friends.
As part
of that activity, she alleges, she had sex with Prince Andrew three times; the
first time in London in 2001, the second time in New York and the third in an
orgy in the US Virgin Islands.
According
to Channel 4's Dispatches programme, The Prince And the Paedophile, Mrs Roberts
later feared for her life due to the amount of sexual abuse she suffered at the
hands of Epstein and his associates.
The
programme obtained medical records from a New York hospital that shows that Ms
Roberts, suffered three weeks of vaginal bleeding from the 9th of July 2001.
+7
·
Virginia Roberts alleges that Prince Andrew
had sex with her
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+7
·
According to court documents, Ms Roberts
was brought to London by
Epstein in March 2001, when she was 17, and met the Prince at a house in
Belgravia.
Ms
Roberts said she was excited to meet a real Prince and wanted a picture taken
of her and Andrew together to send back to her family back in the United
States.
So she
handed her own camera to Epstein, who took the widely published photo of Andrew
with his hand around her.
She
alleges that moments after the photo was taken, she and the Prince went into a
bedroom and bathroom, where they had sex.
The
accuser claims she later felt like she was being 'graded' on her performance by
the disgraced paedophile financier, who told her: 'You did well, the Prince had
fun.'
The
programme cites a court deposition made in January 2015 as part of a defamation
case brought by Epstein's former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.
In it,
Ms Roberts claimed she had sex with Prince Andrew three times, the first at the
house in Belgravia, a second time at Epstein's house in Manhattan and the third
time in an 'orgy on Epstein's private island in the US Virgin Islands'.
Referring
to the third time, Ms Roberts said she was 18 at the time and that the Prince,
Epstein and 'approximately eight other young girls, and I had sex together'.
+7
·
+7
·
She
said Epstein had joked that the girls couldn't communicate well due to a
language barrier and that he said they were the 'easiest' girls to get along
with.
Prince
Andrew has vehemently denied her claims and Ms Roberts' evidence was
thrown out by a court in May 2015.
Earlier
this year Buckingham Palace said: 'Any suggestion of impropriety with underage
minors is categorically untrue.' and 'It is emphatically denied that the Duke
of York had any form of sexual contact with Virginia Roberts. Any claim to the
contrary is false and without foundation.'
Prince
Andrew said of Epstein: 'At no stage during the limited time I spent with him
did I see, witness or suspect any behaviour of the sort that subsequently led
to his arrest and conviction.'
The
documentary also unearthed claims that Epstein had '13 contact numbers for
Prince Andrew' in an address book.
Discovered
at his mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, the address book was found to have
contact details for several of the Duke of York's residences, including
Buckingham Palace.
Virginia Roberts 'went hospital with internal
bleeding after orgies'
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+7
·
British
socialite Lady Victoria Hervey told Dispatches that Epstein, who killed himself
in prison, was 'addicted to collecting people' such as the royal.
'Andrew
was kind of like newly single... And he meets this charismatic man – Jeffrey
collected people. He was almost addicted to collecting important people.
'He
liked to impress people. So, the British Royal Family, can you imagine? This
was his biggest kind of trophy.'
+7
·
Andrew
says he first met Epstein in 1999, around the same time he had a brief romance
with Lady Victoria.
An
unnamed friend of Epstein told the programme the prince's friendship with the
American after his 2009 conviction for having sex with underage girls was 'more
than a lack of judgment' and showed hubris.
The
friend added: 'You begin to believe you can't be damaged. You're beyond being
damaged. The little people out there can't touch you.'
He said
he warned Epstein against having the prince visit him in New York in 2010
following his spell in prison for sex offences. He claims he told Epstein:
'They will attack Prince Andrew for being your friend, and each of you will lose...
And I remember him saying: 'No one will know'.'
The
warnings proved correct and the pair were photographed together in Central
Park. Andrew admits he knew Epstein for 12 years but has strongly denied any
inappropriate behaviour with underage girls.
Dai
Davis, who was in charge of royal protection for the Metropolitan Police in the
1990s, said he was 'mystified' as to why Scotland Yard did not investigate.
Epstein
hanged himself in August in prison in New York while awaiting trial for sex
trafficking charges.
+7
·
Buckingham Palace Threatened ABC to Kill Epstein-Linked Prince Andrew Story, Anchor Recorded as Saying
The British royal family threatened ABC News to drop a story about Virginia Giuffre, a woman who alleged late financier Jeffrey Epstein used her as an underage sex slave for himself and his friends, including Prince Andrew, according to Amy Robach, ABC’s “Good Morning America” co-host and Breaking News anchor, who made the allegation in what appeared to be a hot mic moment.
The pressure from Buckingham Palace was one of the reasons why the network killed the story, Robach said in a video released by Project Veritas on Nov. 5.
“First of all, I was told, ‘Who’s Jeffrey Epstein? No one knows who that is. This is a stupid story,’” Robach was recorded as saying. “The [Buckingham] Palace found out that we had her whole allegations about Prince Andrew and threatened us a million different ways.”
She said the network was afraid of losing access to Prince William and Kate Middleton and “that also squashed the story.”
‘Unbelievable What We Had’
Epstein was arrested on July 6 in New Jersey on sex trafficking charges, which caused broader media to report on decades worth of allegations made against him by some two dozen women, including Giuffre.
Giuffre (previously Roberts) made her allegations in a January 2015 sworn affidavit, describing how she was recruited by Epstein’s close associate Ghislaine Maxwell, systematically trained as a sex slave for Epstein, and eventually passed around to other men, including Epstein’s longtime associate Prince Andrew, who was at one time sixth in line to the throne. Andrew denied the allegations. Giuffre provided a picture of Andrew with his arm around Giuffre’s hip with Maxwell in the background.
Robach said ABC convinced Giuffre to give an interview three years ago and that they managed to corroborate her story with accounts of other women and with pictures provided by Giuffre.
“She had pictures, she had everything,” Robach said. “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.”
Robach was apparently frustrated by the network’s refusal to run the story, only to see the story proliferate after Epstein’s arrest.
“I tried for three years to get it on to no avail. And now it’s all coming out, and it’s like these new revelations, and I freaking had all of it. I’m so [expletive] right now,” she said.
Eventually, Robach said she grew concerned about the network’s treatment of the story.
“I got a little concerned why I couldn’t get on,” she said.
Robach responded to the video in a statement saying she was disappointed that the interview didn’t air, but that it lacked “sufficient corroborating evidence to meet ABC’s editorial standards.”
ABC’s editorial standards have recently come under scrutiny after the network repeatedly aired Kentucky gun range footage, presenting it as Turkish incursion in Syria. The network issued a correction.
ABC said in a statement to Project Veritas that it has had a team investigating the Epstein story and will release a documentary and a podcast on it in 2020.
“At the time, not all our reporting met our standards to air, but we have never stopped investigating the story,” the statement said.
The network didn’t respond to emailed questions regarding the pressure from Buckingham Palace and other statements and allegations made by Robach.
“This is entirely a matter for ABC,” said Hannah Howard, deputy communications secretary to the queen of England, in an emailed response to a request for comment.
‘A Hundred Percent’
Epstein was found dead in his jail cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center on Aug. 10 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
His death was ruled as suicide by the New York medical examiner, who said he had hanged himself with a sheet from his bed.
However, on Oct. 30, famed pathologist Dr. Michael Baden told Fox News that he believes the physical evidence suggests Epstein didn’t take his own life.
He said Epstein’s injuries were “more consistent with ligature homicidal strangulation” than suicide.
Robach seemed fully on board with the theory that Epstein didn’t kill himself.
“Do I think he was killed? A hundred percent, yes I do. Because do you want it? He made his whole living blackmailing people,” Robach said.
“There were a lot of men in those planes, a lot of men who visited that island, a lot of powerful men who came into that apartment.”
She said she “knew immediately” when the news of Epstein’s death broke.
“And they made it seem as though he made that ‘suicide attempt’ two weeks earlier. But his lawyer claimed that he was roughed up by his cellmate around the neck, that was all like to plant the seed,” she said, referring to the conflicting explanations regarding Epstein’s neck injuries after he was found unconscious in his cell 18 days before his death.
“That’s why I really believe it, like, really believe it,” Robach said.
Update: The article has been updated with a response from a spokeswoman for the queen of England.