ABC’s Excuse for Killing Jeffrey Epstein Story Doesn’t Cut It

The mainstream media loves to downplay the impact of Project Veritas and its founder, James O’Keefe, but their usual “oh, he’s just a troll, pay him no mind” attitude isn’t going to work this time around. The crimes and untimely death of billionaire Jeffrey Epstein has people across the political divide confused, upset, and outraged. And when Good Morning America co-host Amy Robach was caught on hidden camera complaining about ABC’s decision to kill an explosive Epstein story three years ago, people demanded answers.

Unfortunately, the one Robach and ABC gave us doesn’t pass the laugh test.

On Monday, O’Keefe dropped a video showing Robach lamenting the early death of a story she’d been working on in 2016.

“I had this interview with [Epstein victim] Virginia Roberts,” Robach says in the video. “We would not put it on the air. The [British royal] Palace found out that we had her whole allegations about Prince Andrew and threatened us a million different ways. We were afraid we wouldn’t be able to interview Kate and Will that we, that also quashed the story […] Roberts had pictures, she had everything. It was unbelievable what we had. Clinton…we had everything.”

Robach’s claim perfectly mirrors the attitude of NBC News executives who tried to kill Ronan Farrow’s expose of Harvey Weinstein. Farrow ultimately took his Pulitzer Prize-winning story to The New Yorker, and NBC has been (pathetically) defending themselves ever since. Now ABC News finds themselves in a similar position. Did they kill the Epstein story because they were afraid of missing out on those precious interviews with Prince William and Kate Middleton? Or (more likely) were they afraid that running a story harmful to Bill Clinton would have damaged Hillary’s chances in 2016?

Whatever the reason, Robach’s comments on the video jibe poorly with what she’s saying now about ABC’s decision.

“I was upset that an important interview I had conducted with Virginia Roberts didn’t air because I could not obtain sufficient corroborating evidence to meet ABC’s editorial standards about her allegations,” she said after the video exploded on social media.

Um. No.

ABC didn’t need “sufficient corroborating evidence” to smear Alabama’s Roy Moore. They didn’t need any such evidence to run with every random woman’s accusations against Donald Trump in 2016. They certainly didn’t put the brakes on the loony tunes who came out of the woodwork to accuse Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.

It seems that ABC’s adherence to lofty journalistic standards depends not on the evidence but on who, exactly, is getting accused.