← The Epstein Chronicles
The Epstein Chronicles
Jeffrey Epstein And The Vanity Fair Puff Piece
00:45:35
The 2003 Vanity Fair profile of Jeffrey Epstein painted him as a glamorous, high-flying financier—luxurious Manhattan mansion, exclusive billionaire clientele, and glamorous flights with celebrities like Bill Clinton and Kevin Spacey. It framed...
Loading summary
Transcript3 lines
- [00:00]
A
When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery, so you can keep your facility stocked, safe, and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grange Ranger for the ones who get it done.
- [00:31]
B
So I'm gonna keep the monologue short. This article deals with Vicky Ward, the 2003 Vanity Fair article that basically was a puff piece about Jeffrey Epstein and what has happened since then. So let's just jump right into this article this morning and get cracking. Like I said, this article is from the New Yorker and the author of this article is Isaac Chotiner. Headline why Didn't Vanity Fair Break the Jeffrey Epstein Story? It's a good question, isn't it? And they had everything they needed. They had the information that was given to them by the Farmer sisters. But no, they didn't break the story. Nope. Instead, what did they do? They quashed it. Let's stash that. So 2003, right? Now imagine if Vanity Fair would have done the right thing and exposed Jeffrey Epstein. Could have went a long way to stopping him, huh? I mean, look at what Julie K. Brown's reporting did, right? Blew the doors open, opened the lid back up. So you mean to tell me that Vicky Ward and Graydon Carter couldn't have stopped Jeffrey Epstein? Maybe if they would have done the right thing instead of hiding the truth. Ghislaine Maxwell is arguably the most hated woman in the world. And I knew her. So begins Vicky Ward's podcast, Chasing Ghislaine, with which launched on Audible this past summer as Maxwell prepared to stand trial in New York City on sex trafficking charges. Personally, I haven't listened to her podcast. I really have no desire to delve deep into what Vicky Ward has to say. Again, I really don't find her to be a reliable narrator when it comes to this story. She's too close, right? Too close to the Glenn Maxwell's of the world. Too close to the socialites of the world. Ward, a British born journalist who is also hosting and co producing a Discovery plus documentary about Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein, describes her experiences covering the pair for almost two decades. And again, another one of these people that was super close to Maxwell at the very least, and somebody who had a chance to speak up. Somebody who had a chance to perhaps put an end to this, but didn't do it. And according to her, she'll say that it was Graydon Carter who was the one who quashed it. But like I've said from the beginning, if you're courageous and you're a journalist and you have a story and. And your editor or the outlet you work for is attempting to quash that story or stop you from telling it, that should signal to you that you have something and you should go elsewhere with it. Even if you get fired. What, you think nobody's going to pick you up with a story like that? Ward also promises to reveal what happened in 2002 when, while working as a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, she interviewed two sisters who said they had been sexually abused by Epstein and Maxwell but was unable to publish their stories. I'm going to tell you why those claims never made it into print, she says. One big reason. Jeffrey Epstein. Convenient. It's a convenient excuse and a convenient person to blame. He's dead right? Real easy to blame Jeffrey Epstein. But in reality, Vicky Ward could have went to another outlet, could have forced the issue. She didn't do any of that. Now, don't get me wrong, it's not just her fault. Graydon Carter shoulders his share of the blame as well. In her podcast, Ward claims that she was determined to expose Epstein as a sexual abuser and had the necessary evidence, but that Epstein convinced Vanity Fair's editor, Graydon Carter, that not to publish the sisters accounts. Vanity Fair, like the New Yorker, is owned by Conde Nast. So that's interesting. The New Yorker is owned by the same company as Vanity Fair, and they're hitting them pretty hard with this piece here. This isn't a puff piece for sure. This is a piece that is really exploring Vicki Ward's role here and not releasing the information that the Farmer sisters gave her. Maria and Annie, both first. Ward says Epstein threatened her, telling her, I have reports here about you, your husband. I have everything under the sun that was sent to me by people who want to be helpful. Despite this and other menacing remarks, Ward recounts, I still thought that I was going to win. I really thought that I could expose Jeffrey Epstein. Oh, I'm sure your revisionist history, right? Then why didn't you do it? It's all fine and well now to say that from the comfort of your millions and millions of dollars and your, you know, high rise apartment in New York City. But where were you when this was all happening and you had the goods? Too scared of Jeffrey Epstein, Too scared of perhaps taking a hit as far as your professional career goes. And instead, you sit on that story and how many other girls were abused in the wake of that? But according to Ward, Epstein and Carter were talking to each other sort of behind the scenes. Epstein and Carter spoke on the phone, and shortly after Ward filed a draft, they met at Vanity Fair's office. Eventually, Ward says, an editor informed her that Carter had decided not to include the sisters allegations in the story. I must have gone into the office because I do remember being there and just crying, she says. They had been so brave, and we just let them down. I mean, wow, really? So instead of just doing the right thing, you're gonna sit here and give us some hindsight and say how you must have gone into the office because you do remember being there and just crying. I mean, come on, give me a break. Setting it up. So what? People feel sorry for you. The reality is you had the goods. The reality is you didn't have the courage to go above your boss's head. That's what it comes down to. Remember, when you're at one of these jobs, it's not the be all, end all. You're not at some gulag in the Soviet Union. You can walk. And I know that, you know, it's not a comfort, a comfortable feeling, you know, know, leaving a job or. But at some point, you have to stand up for what's right. And, I mean, there's just no way that I would ever be comfortable letting an editor kill a story like this. I would go crazy. I take it elsewhere 100%. And even if I didn't take it elsewhere, I'd give it to one of my colleagues to run any way to get that information out there. I would never. I don't know how you could sit on something like this. Last December, after a jury found Maxwell guilty on five of six counts, I sent a message to Ward asking if I could interview her. I wanted to find out what she had made of the trial and to learn more about Vanity Fair's decision not to run the allegations against Epstein and Maxwell. I also wanted to talk about a 2011 follow up that Ward had written for Vanity Fair, in which he wrote playfully about Epstein, the describing him as not without humor, and praised Maxwell, calling her passionate and capable of vulnerability. How could a journalist committed to exposing Epstein's abuses have written so casually about the pair? Well, that's because she is just trying to profit, in my opinion. Not that she cares about these survivors. If she did, she would have helped out Maria and Annie when they first came to her, and they first, you know, exposed that part of their life to her. That's a serious show of trust. And as a journalist, you should do the right thing there. Ward and I spoke on the phone and I asked her to forward emails that could verify some of her claims about Vanity Fair. Many of the things that she told me and had told her podcast listeners turned out to be untrue. Oh, no kidding. Who's told you guys that from the beginning? Her story never added up. And honestly, when you just put the pieces together in this story and you look at what people have said, the statements they've made, and you paste it all together in one long chain, a lot of times it just doesn't add up. And the same thing occurred here with Vicky Ward. None of it added up. And if you listen to Maria Farmer and Annie, very adamant about, about what occurred here. So I have always had a very questionable opinion of Vicky Ward and her work. I don't believe her to be some hard charging journalist that was trying to take Epstein down. In fact, I think that she was pumping the tires for Epstein and Maxwell. That's my personal opinion. All publications, including this one, at times look back on stories and regret not pursuing them further. But Ward's claim that Vanity Fair prevented her from exposing Epstein's Epstein misrepresents a more complicated reality. Carter, who now says he distrust, he distrusted Ward as a reporter, has offered conflicting explanations for his magazine's decision not to run the sisters allegations. Now, again, look, I'm not just gonna sit here and blame Vicki Ward, right? Graydon Carter, the editor, has to shoulder his blame, too. This is again, like I always say, a big shit sandwich. And all of these people are taking a bite. There is no way that this, this story should have been sat on. Have a little bit of courage. Have some integrity. I mean, how many times do these outlets run stories from anonymous sources? Then that gives them the leeway and the COVID to say all kinds of ridiculous things and paint the situation however they want it. But all of a sudden we get solid, concrete evidence from two people who were assaulted by Epstein and Maxwell, and you stuff that. How can anyone believe anything that somebody like that has to say? For her part, Ward has repeatedly misrepresented her reporting on Epstein, changing her story from year to year and at times from day to day, and. And was a far less heroic actor than she would have her audiences believe. I am horrified. One of the sisters, Maria Farmer, said last year about Ward's podcast. She won't stop torturing us. And it's hurting us so badly. Look, I can't disagree with what the author has to say here. She has misrepresented her reporting from the beginning. And again, folks, look, I. I say it all the time and I'll continue to say it. I don't trust anybody who's part of this circle. Why? Why would I trust Vicky Ward? What has she done or reported on or proven to us that that would make us trust her? Just because she was around Epstein and Maxwell? Just because she's another it girl like Victoria Hervey? Sorry, I don't believe these people. And Vicki Ward's definitely up there as somebody that I just don't find to be a reliable narrator, if you will. Ward's reporting on Epstein and Maxwell began in 2002 when Carter asked her to profile Epstein, who was known for hosting friends such as Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and Kevin Spacey. Epstein claimed to manage the investments of billionaires, but his only known client was the Limited brand CEO, Leslie Wexner. Well, we know that he also had Leon Black on the hook for $158 million, so I would guess Leon Black would be considered a client as well. Yeah. Ward, a British born journalist, had moved to New York in 1997, where she worked at the New York Post and Talk magazine before moving on to Vanity Fair. Ward told me that she was well positioned to report on Epstein because her. So her social, excuse me, her social circle overlapped with Maxwell's. And there's the rub, right? You're already in the circle with these people, so I expect you to report on them fairly. Or would one suspect you to try and protect them, to try and harbor them, to try and make sure that their reputations go untainted? And if she didn't prove that she was doing that with quashing this story, then it would be a leap too far to make. Right. But with the evidence we have here, her not running this story, how kindly she talked about Epstein and Maxwell, even all the way in 2011. And it adds up to Vicky Ward not really being very truthful with her audience. I was very close to one of her Oxford classmates who was not a particularly powerful or staggeringly rich person, but. But is a very decent person. She told me. So that possibly warmed me to her. You judge people by their friends. You do. No, I don't. I judge people by the way they conduct themselves. You judge people by their friends? Really? So if that's the case, then you're just as bad as Maxwell and Epstein. They were your friends, right? I Judge people by the way they conduct themselves and by the way that they treat me and other people. You might have a bunch of asshole friends, but you might be a good person, right? So I don't even know what that means. You judge people by their friends. Ward's impression of Epstein was different. During a reporting she says on the podcast, Epstein told her that he could get her husband, the venture capitalist Matthew Dole, fired because he knew her husband's boss, also her husband's step uncle, the media mogul Conrad Black. Ah, and here we go, right back to Conrad Black, huh? Wasn't it Conrad Black who just came out defending these people? And you see the circular nature of all of this, right? All of this stuff goes back to the same core little group of folk. Conrad Black, Vicky Ward, Prince Andrew, Victoria Hervey. You know, this whole circle of these two. Bit and outdated supposed nobility. Oh, the aristocracy. Oh, ha ha, ha ha. Get me my pipe and my smoking jacket. Bennett. Ward was pregnant at the time, and she says that Epstein also made inappropriate remarks about her pregnancy. He repeatedly asked what she was giving when she was giving birth, and at one point informed her that when you give birth, as your vaginal canal opens, you have this chemical released into your system with oxygen, oxytocin. It also causes you to fall in love with the thing you see coming out of it. Uh, what? Again, who knows if he really even said all of that? I'm very skeptical of Vicky Ward at this point. Very skeptical. Ward soon alerted to something even darker about Epstein. A friend told her that an artist named Maria Farmer had had a bad experience with Epstein and urged Ward to reach out to the young woman. Farmer, who had met Epstein and Maxwell while she was a 25 year old graduate student at the New York Academy of Art, had been hired by Epstein as an art advisor. Farmer told ward that in 1996, she stayed at an Ohio mansion with Epstein and Maxwell where Epstein had sexually assaulted her while Maxwell held her hand. Epstein and Maxwell had also taken an interest in her younger sister, Annie. Max. Now, we all know the story about Annie and Maria at this point, and Maria told Vicky Ward this whole entire story. Annie told her story and Vicky Ward, Vanity Fair, Graydon Carter decided it wasn't important enough to run. Instead, let's run a puff piece on Epstein about the mysterious and cool Jeffrey Epstein. Meanwhile, the dude was an absolute clown. A dork. Cool mom. Jeans, bro. Nice slippers, Tool. I mean, really. Epstein and Maxwell had also taken an interest in her younger sister, Annie. Ward talked to Annie too, who told her that the same year, when she was 16, she had stayed with Epstein and Maxwell at Epstein's New Mexico ranch. Maxwell had told Annie to remove her clothes and massaged her breasts. Maxwell also showed her how to give Epstein a foot massage, which she did. Annie also said that Epstein had entered the bedroom where she was staying and pressed his body against hers. So we won't go too deep into that. We covered all of this during the trial, but it shows you. Imagine if you're Vicky Ward and these girls are telling you this story and you just sit on it. How do you look at yourself in the mirror? How do you. How do you come to grips with that? In 2002, Annie and Maria spoke to Ward on the record, as did their mother, who said that her daughter had told her about distressing encounters with Maxwell and Epstein. According to Ward, she also spoke to two other sources, David Schaefer and Eric Fischl, who knew Maria through the New York Academy of Art and had some knowledge of what happened in Ohio. Neither Fishel nor Shaffer responded to my request for comment, but in 2019, Fishel told the Times that Maria had called him from Epstein's house and described a disturbing physical encounter with Epstein. I just kept telling Maria, you've got to get out of there, Fishel said. And again, Maria has recounted this time and time again, her story, what she went through. And she's provided the receipts, right? Different people to back up her story. Other art students corroborating the situation in New Mexico, you know, the whole entire thing. But Vicki Ward and Graydon Carter, they couldn't be bothered to run the story. The article appeared in vanity fair and March 2003 issue, did not include the farmer's allegations. No. Noting only that Epstein tended to surround himself with young women. Oh, you know, talk about sanitization, sanitizing, right? Let's just sanitize the whole thing. Oh, he's surrounded by young girls because he's such a hip guy, he's such a good looking dude. I mean, it's unbelievable when you look back at this in hindsight, and you really see what Jeffrey Epstein was and you see the way that they're trying to, you know, protect his image and build him up like he's some kind of playboy, some kind of great financier on Wall Street. It's just gross. Ward claims that this was a result of Epstein's influence on Carter after Epstein visited Vanity Fair's office. She claims Carter told her that Epstein was sensitive about the young women. Epstein denied the farmer's allegations and according to Ward and Carter. Excuse me, according to Ward, Carter believed. Carter said, I believe him. So again, it's he said, she said. I think there's plenty of blame to go around between Carter and Vicki Ward, both. Carter tells a different story. I edited the first draft of Ms. Ward's story. He said in an email there was no mention of young women in it. When she tried to add these facts late in the process, we were about to go on press. Her editor, our chief of research, and our legal editor, our all felt she did not have credible evidence that would stand up in court. I mean, again, have you seen the stuff that these publications run? Anonymous source this, anonymous source that, and, and it's taken as, you know, fact. Meanwhile, you have two credible witnesses, two women coming forward saying they were abused by this guy and it wasn't credible enough to run. So remember that the next time you see anonymous source in a Vanity Fair article. After Carter sent this statement, Ward shared emails between her and Vanity Fair staffers in a pattern that became familiar. The emails indicated that the dates and details Ward had previously provided were incorrect. She went on to offer four different accounts of when the farmers were removed from the piece, eventually admitting that she didn't remember what had happened and then returning to her initial claim. See, and this is what I'm talking about with these people. It's such a disgusting way to go about things and it's so dishonest. And it's just another reason why people don't believe the legacy media anymore. And when I say people, I don't mean people on one side or the other. I'm talking about people in general. These folks that are supposed to be journalists, they have certainly lost their way. But the emails also showed that Ward presented the magazine with her allegations by early December, weeks before the article closed in mid December, Ward was discussing the farmers with fact checkers. And a photo editor asked for assistance obtaining Maria Farmer's photos. So again, look, I don't want it to seem like I'm just blaming Vicky Ward. I am not. She shoulders her. Her share of the blame. Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair, the whole lot of them. But for me, as the author of the story, you gotta go somewhere else if they don't want, if they're not biting. And I don't care if it's your, your job, your career, whatever it is, you have an obligation almost as a journalist. When I share this timeline with Carter, he. He replied in an email, well, this is my mistake then. Remember, this was almost 20 years ago. He then suggested he had not been involved in decision making about the article. What I do know is that I had complete trust in my editors, our legal editor, our head of research, and our researchers. And I gave them a great deal of latitude in what could be included in a story and what could not. In 99% of these cases, they made the decisions among themselves. But just. It just so happens that this is that one percentile, huh? Oh, I gave them great latitude. You know what that is, right? Him giving himself a buffer from the decision making process. Oh, well, you know, I let my editors do it. It's really not my fault. Sorry, Graydon. Carter, you're the boss, you're the editor. The buck stops with you. Carter and I also spoke on the phone, and he told me that the decision not to run the farmer's allegations was likely influenced by Ward's professional reputation. My staff, to a person, did not trust her. I spoke to numerous people who had played the played some role in the production of Ward's article, which for such a story, always includes fact checkers, editors, and lawyers. None felt able to go on the record to discuss the magazine's handling of the piece, but several said that Ward had not gathered evidence that would stand up in court, and others echoed Carter's remarks about Ward's journalism. And yikes, that's certainly a black mark on old Vicky Ward here, huh? The good thing is for her, she's loaded anyway. And even if she doesn't have a job as a journalist or peddling you podcasts or whatever, she's not gonna go without a meal. Ain't like you or I, if we miss, if we. We lose our jobs, forget it, right? Most of us are a month or two away from absolute ruination. Vicki had zero credibility with the fact checking and legal departments. One person who worked at Vanity Fair at the time told me they had too many bad experiences. Another then staffer said that Ward had provided inaccurate quotations and had had disputes with sources about when they were speaking on the record. A third person who worked extensively with both Ward and Carter, told me that he thought Vanity Fair could have done more to pursue the farmer's allegations, but also that Ward seemed not to understand basic journalistic rules. In response to these statements about our work, Ward said, I worked for Vanity Fair for a decade after this. That speaks for itself. Oh, does it? Does it really? How many bad employees keep their jobs? I mean, let's be very honest here. A lot of bad employees keep their jobs. That doesn't mean you're doing a good Job just means either A, you know somebody in the company, B, they don't want to fire you, or C, it's just an inept operation overall. Ward was not the only person who said that Epstein exerted pressure on Carter. John Connolly, a former Vanity Fair contributing editor who died in January, told NPR in 2019 that in 2003, Epstein was torturing Carter, telling him not to report on the young women. After Ward's piece was published, Connally added, Carter told him that he had found a bullet outside his house in Manhattan and viewed it as a threat from Epstein. Very circumstantial. Is that something that is out of the realm of possibility for Epstein? Nope. We know that he's threatened people before, but I can't verify that, and I don't know if anyone can, to be honest with you. That could. Maybe that's Graydon Carter trying to make the situation look more dire for himself. In 2006, Connolly was pursuing his own story about Epstein for Vanity Fair when a cat's head appeared on the stoop of Carter's country home. Again, I'm not too sure. I wasn't there. How many other stories has Carter run? Or does Carter have other enemies? Again, we don't know, but certainly a pretty odd coincidence. According to Connolly, Carter expressed concern about his own children's safety, and Connolly decided to drop the story. Wow. Really? I mean, again, this is what journalism is. Oh, I'm scared for my safety. I'm going to drop the story. It's pretty pathetic. And it just, again, goes to show why people just really don't trust the ind. I mean, the. The legacy media. At this point, Carter disputed Connolly's account, telling New York that he recalls the bullet appearing the year after Ward story was published, that he and his wife attributed the bullet and the cat to aggrieved George W. Bush supporters. Exactly. That's what I would think it would be. I highly doubt Jeffrey Epstein would do that. I mean, just doesn't seem like his M.O. right? It seems too brutish. He's more of a behind the, behind the scenes, you know, white glovet from the curtain type of guy. And that to suggest that either of these incidents affected my editorial judgment is flatly wrong. Another former Vanity Fair staffer told me Graydon was definitely not intimidated. When I asked whether Carter would have any reason to protect Epstein, the former staffer responded, graydon had a small circle of people he was very loyal to, so maybe he would protect one of them, but absolutely not with Epstein. So, again, I don't know. Graydon Carter. I don't know Vicki Ward. All I can go on is what they did here and what they did here was straight trash. And it's a coward's way out, really. I recently spoke and corresponded with Annie Farmer about her and Maria's experiences with Warden Vanity Fair. Annie passed along a statement from Maria in which Maria said that when she saw the published article, I immediately felt I was no longer safe. Epstein and Maxwell now knew that Maria was willing to speak to reporters, Annie wrote, but she didn't have the safety of being on the record about them. In 2019, Maria told the Times that shortly after the story was published, Maxwell threatened her life. She said, I know you go to the west side highway all the time. While you're out there, just be really, really careful. There are a lot of ways to die there. Maxwell's lawyers did not respond to requests for comment. And Maria has said the same thing over and over and over again. They told Graydon Carter this. They told Vicki Ward this. They told during the next several years, the facts about Epstein's abuse of minors began to emerge. By 2006, Florida police had found extensive evidence that Epstein was soliciting sex from teenage girls at his mansion in Palm Beach. Facing state and potentially federal charges, Epstein secured a plea deal that allowed him to serve a brief sentence in a county jail. By 2011, he he had been released and returned to his previous life with Prince Andrew and other celebrities. Spending time at his Manhattan residence. Must be nice, huh? Get out of jail party, you know, all your friends show up. Prince Andrew, the rest of the so called elite. Boy, isn't that a nice party? How can so much scum fit in one room or one house? Even if it's that gigantic townhouse? It was then that Ward decided to write about Epstein and Maxwell again for for Vanity Fair's website. On her podcast, she says that she saw it as an opportunity to actually finally get the Farmer's allegations into the narrative about Jeffrey and Ghislaine. But the piece, which was published in March of 2011, did none of that, instead flattering Epstein and Maxwell and making light of the Farmer's allegations. So she makes light of the allegations, right? And then she goes on later on to profit off of all of this with this big podcast and this audible deal and all of that. I don't know how anybody honestly could take her seriously. And I don't know why anybody would even bother listening to her work at this point. Lucky Land Casino asking people what's the weird 2003 piece she had Gotten to know Jeffrey and Ghisain far better after I kept running into them separately at parties. She she did not seem to feel threatened by Epstein. So all of the hurrah about, oh, I was scared of Epstein, this, that, the other thing. Sure didn't seem scared of him after that, huh? Sure didn't seem scared of him when you guys were all hanging out at parties with the rest of the so called elite. But now let's go ahead and profit from all of this. Let's act like I cared. Let's act like I was trying to expose them. She did not seem to feel threatened by Epstein. Instead, she recalled joking with him about the young women who flanked him at events of Maxwell. She wrote, full disclosure, I like her. Most people in New York do. She is always the most interesting, the most vivacious, the most unusual person in any room. I've spent hours talking to her about the third world at a bar until 2am she is as passionate as she is knowledgeable. Yeah, no wonder you wrote a puff piece and didn't add the allegations against her and Epstein. You guys are homies. Always have been. Homies talking about the third World. First of all, it's called the developing world, not the third world. What century are you in? But we shouldn't expect anything else from the aristocracy. We're all still just, you know, feudal servants to them anyway. While reporting her 2003 piece, Ward wrote that she had heard stories about the girls, but not knowing quite whom to believe, I concentrated on the intriguing financial mystery instead. She also wrote, sure, Jeffrey had his sexual peccadilloes, but then Ghislaine Maxwell's father, the late press baron Robert Maxwell, was not without his oddities. Oh, nice case of what about ism. That's what you see all the time too, right? If you bring up somebody in politics or anything, somebody on the other side inevitably is going to point to someone else and say, yeah, but what about him? Well, we'll get to him later. What about, we're talking about this scumbag now. Can we talk about this scumbag first and then get to the other scumbag without all of the whataboutism? Don't worry, there's plenty of barbs for them all. Maria Farmer's reaction to Ward's Vanity Fair post was one of extreme distress. In a statement passed along by her sister, she said, when I first saw it, I cried for hours and felt completely betrayed by someone I had trusted. A spokesperson for Audible said the podcast reflects Ward's rigorous journalistic investigation as well as her personal recollections of her personal experiences. Again, way better sources out there, folks. Bradley Edwards book Relentless Pursuit Melissa Cronin has a good book. Epstein Dead Men Tell no Tales. Several good books out there. Certainly don't need to waste your time with whatever Vicky Ward's up to. least in my opinion anyway. Ward told podcast listeners, given what Maria and Annie Farmer had told me in 2002, of course I wouldn't have described Jeffrey's sexual habits like that. She also claimed that Vanity Fair did not give her the opportunity to review this heavy edit before posting it. The first time she saw the final piece, she said was was after it had been published. I don't believe that either. I mean, maybe it's true, but personally I don't believe that. I asked Ward if she had proof of her claims, and she forward forwarded me several emails between her and Vanity Fair's editors and also what she said was her first draft. They directly contradicted what she had told me. Does that shock anybody here? I mean, all it took was one reporter sending her some emails and trying to verify her nonsense. And here we are. The draft was extremely similar to the piece that Vanity Fair ran. It specifically said that she was unsure of whom to believe. The wording of the sentence about sexual peccadilloes was unchanged, and far from expressing distress that the piece was posted without her seeing edits, Ward received a revision from her editor and then an hour later complained that it had, excuse me, complained that it had not yet appeared online, adding it's a blog. Sigh. Aw, poor Vicki. She didn't have her piece up too quickly. Ward made one claim about the 2011 piece that was even more serious. She told me that she had included Farmer sisters precise allegations, but but they had been excised by someone at Vanity Fair. And indeed, her draft did include several sentences about the farmer's allegations without using their names, which also appeared in the version she received from her editor, but not in the published piece. Those original sentences not only failed to show the sympathy for the farmers that Ward says she felt, they also depict Maria and Annie's allegations as less significant than than they were. Look, the allegations were obviously spot on, and Annie's allegations were enough to get Ghislaine Maxwell convicted. So when Ward or Carter says there wasn't enough there to run a story, I am very, very skeptical of that. Ward left out Annie's allegations that Maxwell had massaged her and that Epstein had entered her bed. The younger girl, Ward wrote, claimed only that she had massaged his feet. Weird, but not criminal. The other, she wrote, claimed that her breast had been fondled. Ward does not specify by whom, but in both cases, Epstein and Maxwell denied the claims and the older girl had not been a minor at the time. Ward concluded we left the strange sex out and concentrated on the intriguing financial mystery instead. Let me ask you a question. When's the last time the legacy media left the strange sex part out of his story? They look for the most salacious part of every story and dive in. So all of a sudden they want to leave that part out here, huh? I called Ward after receiving these emails and asked her why she hadn't included Annie Farmer's claims about Maxwell in her draft. I wish I could remember, she told me. She also again denied writing that she wasn't sure she could believe the Farmer sisters. So I read her the passage, passage which she had sent me out loud. I was deliberately covering for Graydon. She told me. Carter denies that he asked Ward to cover for him. 2011 was a year. I made a lot of bad decisions. I was not mentally well. She attributed this to getting a divorce. I mean, so she's going to say she wasn't mentally well? That's the reason why this all happened? Give me a break. Just another excuse. Another excuse from an epic excuse maker. Never my fault, everybody else's fault. Deflect, deflect, deflect. Never take any kind of self responsibility. I was curious why Ward had decided to write the 2011 piece, given her account of her prior experiences with both Epstein and Vanity Fair. She didn't say, as she had in the past, that it was to air the Farmer's allegations. Instead, she told me, I think the reason I did it was, was that the media industry was imploding. I was really worried about money and having a tricky time. And life at Vanity Fair always depended on Graydon's moods. Everyone was desperate for content and wanted blogs. She added, this may seem bizarre, but by being able to write about it so flippantly, I think it made me feel good, actually. What? It does sound bizarre. Everything about you sounds bizarre. You think you're worried about your job? How about the people that are making pennies on the dollar who don't know if they'll have food in the refrigerator next week? And you're worried about your job? I also asked Carter about the 2011 story. I never saw this piece, he said in an email. It was written for the Vanity Fair website, which was then relatively primitive and which I looked at only occasionally in those days, I was still primarily focused on the print magazine. He may not have read the piece, but Ward forwarded me an email from an editor who said that he had heard about it from Carter and another from a staffer who said that the editor was running it by Graden for his approval. In his email to me, Carter criticized Ward for writing glowingly of Epstein and Maxwell. I asked Carter if he regretted running the piece. Yes, of course, he replied. It's always, you know, in hindsight that they regret it. Right? None of these people regretted it enough to stop hanging out with Epstein or to expose him. Now, of course, it's a whole different story. In 2015, the Epstein saga entered a new phase. A woman named Virginia Roberts filed a federal lawsuit against Epstein, alleging that she had been sexually abused and trafficked by him with Maxwell's assistance. It was at this point that Ward, who had left Vanity Fair, began telling a new story about her reporting on Epstein. In a piece published by the Daily Beast, she claimed for the first time that Carter had suppressed the farmer's allegations. It came down to my source's word against Epstein, she wrote. And at the time, Graydon believed Epstein. It's funny how all of a sudden, when the mood changes and people are no longer friendly to Epstein, all of a sudden Vicki Ward has a new story. It's not writing glowingly anymore. Now it's Graydon Carter's fault. Four years later, Epstein was arrested on federal charges of trafficking minors. Ward did a round of press about the case repeatedly stating her allegations of being silenced by vanity fair. In August 2019, Epstein found dead in a New York City jail by an apparent suicide. Ward, who had joined CNN as a senior reporter, spoke about Epstein and her experience at Vanity Fair on the network. Ward's podcast is the most complete version of this narrative, and her decision to capitalize on the farmer's testimony is unmistakable. And this is the big problem that Maria and I'm sure Annie have with the whole situation now. If. If Vicki Ward would have helped them, been someone who cared about, then I'm sure it would have been a different story about her having this podcast and revisiting what occurred. But she didn't help them. In fact, she made it more difficult on Maria and Annie to get justice. Over. Ominous music, she tells Maria's story of being sexually assaulted by Epstein and Maxwell. Afterward, she explains, Maria could not escape the Ohio property until her father was able to pick her up. She had not. She had to stay trapped with them in that same house. Ward says, I remember her saying that they told her there were sharpshooters outside. And Maria has been very consistent with that part of her story, for sure. She was stuck on that property, the Wexner's property in Ohio. She couldn't leave. The head of security, a guy named Randy Bowie, was, you know, keeping her against her will. It's a. A very, very sad tale, and it's heart wrenching to think that people went through this, someone like Maria went through this. And Vicky Ward protects Epstein. Listening to this again, after my email exchange with Ward, I turned to her first draft of the 2011 story, which recounts the same events Maria Ward wrote then claimed that her breasts had been fondled and she'd leaped off the bed and run out of the house. This was worse than the flippancy Ward had admitted to. It was a betrayal of two women who had risked so much to tell their stories. Maria has said for years after her experience with Ward, she did not share the details of her assault again. And she didn't. Maria was very guarded about all of this. She had to live in exile, basically hiding. Today, we know the extraordinary extent of Epstein's sexual predations. More than 150 women have accused him of sexual abuse, with many stating that they were underage at the time. This is in large part the work of the women themselves, who filed lawsuits and went public with their stories despite fears of reprisal. And that's really what it comes down to. I've said it from the beginning. These women, the survivors who stole the narrative back then, they're the real heroes. Nobody else. Not Julie K. Brown, Nobody else. It was also accomplished by journalists, most notably Julie K. Brown of the Miami Herald, who persisted in investigating Epstein long after he was allowed to settle the initial case against him. And there's no doubt that Julie K. Brown played a role here in bringing light back to this. But the real heroes, let's never lose a sight of the plot here, all right? The real heroes are the survivors. Brown, who began her reporting in 2016, combed heavily redacted police reports to identify 80 alleged Epstein survivors and persuaded many of them to speak with her on the record. She also secured the cooperation of the Palm beach police chief and the lead investigator on the case, which allowed her to piece together a critical part of the story, the deal Epstein struck with federal prosecutors, which shielded him from serious consequences. Her work didn't just expose Epstein, but also the culture that allowed him to survive. When federal prosecutors finally did charge Epstein with sex trafficking in 2019, Jeffrey Berman, then the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York said we were assisted by some excellent investigative journalism. Then there's no doubt that Julie K. Brown's story swung the spotlight right back onto the case. And when you look at Julie K. Brown's reporting and match it up with Vicky Ward's, there's no doubt that Julie K. Brown did a better job. Right? But we know that she's facing her own issues now, being sued by a couple of the survivors, so we'll see where that goes. But the whole thing with Vicky Ward has always sat with me wrong. And then for her to turn around and profit the way she has, man, that gotta really, really bother these survivors. All right, folks, that's gonna do it for today after that nice crazy long article we just popped off there. And what do you folks think about that? You think Vicki Ward is trustworthy? You think she's somebody that's reliable? Is her content something you're going to dive into? Shoot me some emails, let me know. We're gonna wrap it up there and obviously we'll be back later on with the evening update. And until then, like, like usual, some context episodes are on the way. If you'd like to contact me, you can do that@bobby capuchirotonmail.com that's B O B B Y C A P U C c I@protonmail.com youm can also find me on Twitter obby Cap Ucci. The link that we discussed can be found in the description box. All right, folks, I'll be back later on, I hope.
- [46:04]
A
Does your New Year's rescue.