ABC's excuse of the allegations not meeting their journalistic standards at the time doesn't hold up. The evidence against Epstein in 2016 was very solid compared to other accusation stories that ABC granted national coverage.

Sitting on this story and similarly, the Weinstein stories, is inexcusable for media that wants to wrap themselves in the flag of journalistic integrity. It's no wonder trust is at an all-time low.

Bill Clinton is mentioned. "Three years ago" means that ABC suppressed the story during the 2016 presidential election.

> In 2015, a judge ruled that the allegations made by Ms Giuffre regarding Prince Andrew were "immaterial and impertinent" and ordered them to be removed from a claim against Epstein.

I'm not up on British legal terminology. What does it mean when a court finds an allegation "impertinent"? I know what the word "impertinent" means in ordinary English, but if it was just that it seems an odd thing for a court to declare when dismissing something. I'd expect them to just say it was immaterial and leave it at that. So I'm guessing "impertinent" has some specific legal meaning in their system?

There's a bunch of "words" in the english legal system that are like that: a pair of words (with one frequently sourced from french). There's a list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_doublet

"immaterial and impertinent" isn't referenced on that list, but shows up in a list of reasons to dismiss. https://www.upcounsel.com/legal-def-averment suggests that they were once different, but are now the same.

impertinent, definition 2 (formal): not pertinent to a particular matter; irrelevant

So yeah, judge is just saying the same thing twice for emphasis.

Was just looking around for some corrobation, and it seems that project Veritas has found something for once.

WaPo Opinion piece: (It estimates that this is on the same order of magnitude as the mishandling of the Weinstein scandal by NBC.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/11/05/ive-had-t...

Hollywoodreport (which quotes more from the ABC statement and Robach's statements on the Veritas video):

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/abcs-amy-robach-made-...

The primary source: https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/11/05/video-leaked-insid...

News outlets should self-report any threats to their integrity, thereby protecting themselves from any blowback by oligarchs.

The BBC plays it pretty straight, I've heard.

Please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait to HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Not the first time i’ve heard people talking about connection between epstein and mossad, but i’ve never actually read anything about it. Do you have any source giving more info on that ?

Alos, based on the article, it seems the reason abc didn’t publish anything is more due to pressure from the british royal family rather than israel, or did i miss something ?

Alexander Acosta (prosecutor against Epstein in 2007) made a cryptic remark that Epstein "belonged to intelligence" and that he was told to leave the case alone.

This remark, along with the soft plea deal he got have created a lot of speculation (mostly outside of mainstream news outlets, for obvious reasons), that Epstein was operating a blackmail honeypot for some intelligence agency, either the CIA or Mossad I guess, since he had some ties to the Israeli defense industry and some former high-level Israeli politicians.

It's honestly not that implausible that an intelligence agency would let him keep his pedo ring as long as they knew who was in it, it would have been a blackmail goldmine based on the kind of people that were in his social circle.

Here is the source of the quote and some more information on his ties to Israeli intelligence if this interests you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein#Financial_cons...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein#Israeli_startu...

(Not that I buy into any conspiracy theories, but...)

I'm guessing it's because Ghislaine Maxwell (who has now gone underground, whereabouts unknown) was intimately tied to Epstein, and her father Robert Maxwell has plausible ties to Mossad. (Check the Wikipedia on Robert Maxwell.)

not to mention the former labor secretary saying that epstein "belonged to intelligence": https://www.dailywire.com/news/acosta-was-told-epstein-belon...

I can’t imagine Robert Maxwell being the model parent.

Unrelated to this article and reeks of antisemitic tropes.

There has to be an internet law regarding the speed of convergence of Israel mentions to cries of antisemitism.

That being said I don't agree with OP.

The article referred to the British royal family, not Israel or Jews. Yet the OP felt the need to say the world was ruled by Israel.

Yes, it smells like antisemitism.

anti-Israel != anti-Semitism. You can be against things that the Jewish state does without being against Jews.

smells like != necessarily

If someone made an off topic comment about China or Obama or whatever, I'd suspect their motivations on those too.

It doesn't mean that every criticism of Obama or China is necessarily racist, but boy is it hard to read goodwill in comments where that sort of thing is irrelevant.

Except nobody in epstein story is israeli. So then why make the link ?

If I said the world is ruled by France, would you say I'm antiwhite?

This clip was released by Project Veritas. This is James O'Keefe's propaganda outfit.

This is the same person who attempted to trick a CNN reporter onto a boat full of sex toys in an attempt to seduce her on camera: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/acorn-foe-james-okeefe-sought-t...

In 2017, they were caught trying to convince The Washington Post to publish fabricated rape allegations: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/a-woman-approa...

He's been convicted of sneaking into Congressional offices.

You should read up on this person before believing anything they release: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O%27Keefe.

Project Veritas is a pure propaganda outfit, and republishing anything they do is a disservice to information.

If there was any doubt as to the veracity of the leaked video, ABC would have simply issued a denial.

Hasn't Project Veritas burned any ability to claim to be a factual outlet at this point?

The conjectured story is concerning, but the fact that Project Veritas is the primary source yields a quite shaky providence. I'd much rather BBC had found better corroboration before running such a story.

> Hasn't Project Veritas burned any ability to claim to be a factual outlet at this point?

No? What supports this claim?