Vicki Ward, who first investigated Jeffrey Epstein in 2002 for Vanity Fair, reveals how threats—including curses on her unborn twins and surveillance of her hospital—silenced her reporting despite Maria Farmer’s abuse claims. Epstein’s 1996 FBI files later confirmed Maria’s allegations, but Ward’s follow-up only emerged in 2019 after Virginia Roberts Geoffrey’s revelations. She questions the Justice Department’s missing files on Trump’s alleged 1980s assault and Epstein’s early 1990s abuse pattern, exposing a global elite shielded by transactional justice. Epstein’s network, tied to Clinton and others, evaded scrutiny until 2018, when Miami Herald reporter Julie Brown’s exposé forced action—proving systemic failures over individual complicity. [Automatically generated summary]
I think all the questions of both the Republicans and the Democrats.
With that, we're going to wrap up.
Everyone's going to break and then we'll continue.
Thank you very much.
Angel, anything you want to say?
Coming up later today, we'll hear from President Trump in Corpus Christi, Texas.
He'll be receiving a briefing on energy production efforts from officials there.
We'll have that live a little after 4 p.m. Eastern.
And following that, the president will deliver remarks on energy policy.
That'll get underway at 4:35 p.m.
You can watch both of these events on C-SPAN, also on C-SPAN now, our free mobile video app, and online at c-span.org.
Today, on C-SPAN's Ceasefire, in the wake of this week's State of the Union address, former New Orleans Mayor and Biden Infrastructure Coordinator Mitch Landrew and former Trump White House Director of Strategic Communications Mercedes Schlapp will join our host Dasha Burns for a bipartisan conversation breaking down President Trump's speech, the president's messaging on the economy and immigration, to the growing questions surrounding potential U.S. military action against Iran.
Bridging the divide in American politics.
Watch Ceasefire today at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
And we are back here this morning.
Joining us now is Vicki Ward, investigative journalist and a reporter who has looked into Jeffrey Epstein for years.
Vicki Ward, our viewers may recognize you from the Netflix documentary.
When did you first look into Jeffrey Epstein and why?
I first looked into Jeffrey Epstein, if you can believe it, in 2002.
It was the fall of 2002.
I was pregnant with twins.
It was a complicated pregnancy.
And Jeffrey Epstein was not a known person at that time, but his name popped up in the New York Post's gossip column because he had flown Bill Clinton and a group of celebrities on a philanthropic mission to Africa.
And that was the hook that caused my then editor at Vanity Fair magazine, Graydon Carter, to say to me, I know you who can't fly.
I've wondered for years who this mysterious guy is.
I've wondered where his money came from.
He lives in New York.
You live in New York.
This should be easy for you.
Go find out where he got his money.
And that's how the whole thing began.
And obviously, as I was digging, I started to discover a lot more than discrepancies in Epstein's cover story as to how he had made his money, which turned out not to be true.
But I also came across two sisters, Maria and Annie Farmer, who talked to me about sexual abuse that had happened to each of them separately.
Maria worked for Jeffrey Epstein.
She was in her 20s and she described a horrific evening of abuse in Ohio on the estate of Les Wexner that had taken place.
Annie Farmer, her younger sister, described abuse that had taken place when she was by herself at Epstein's ranch in New Mexico with Ghillen Maxwell and Angela Maxwell.
And she'd only been 16 at the time and she hadn't said anything because she hadn't wanted to jeopardize her older sister's job.
But both sisters, after Maria had been abused, did talk to their mother.
They talked to a businessman in New York.
Maria talked to an artist, Eric Fischel.
In other words, there were contemporaneous witnesses.
And tragically, at the 11th hour, their stories were cut from the article.
And that was after Jeffrey Epstein appeared in the offices of Vanity Fair.
I do not know what conversation was had between him and the editor Grayden Carter.
But what I do know is that the farmer sisters were suddenly cut from the piece.
Did you continue to follow the sisters and the allegations?
And what did you find?
To be honest, immediately after I didn't, because Jeffrey Epstein reporting this piece was a deeply, deeply stressful experience for me because you have to remember, we had no idea who this guy was.
I wondered at times if he belonged to the mob.
And he had begun to threaten me as he started to realize that this piece might contain things he didn't like.
And he had started to threaten.
He said he would have a witch doctor place a curse on my unborn children.
He told me he knew where I was giving birth.
He knew all the doctors in the hospital.
And so before, after I knew that the pharma sisters had been taken out of the piece, but before the piece actually hit newsstands, I went into labor prematurely.
And I then had two very sick, tiny babies who were in the hospital for two months and then who had health issues for the next seven years.
So in all honesty, having lost that battle and having talked to the pharma sisters at the time, Maria Farmer, you know, back then had almost said to me, you know, maybe it's for maybe it's for the best.
And I think we all went home and tried to forget about it.
But in 2015, so over 10 years later, when Virginia Roberts Geoffrey started going public with her claims about what had happened at the hands of Geoffrey Epstein and Gillene Maxwell and started naming people like the former Prince Andrew,
then I phoned Annie Farmer and said, you know, shall we try and resurrect this?
I was no longer working at Vanity Fair magazine.
Do you want me to write a piece and sort of explain what happened?
And she spoke to Maria and she came back to me and she said, yes.
And so that is when, you know, 13 years later, I detailed for the first time what had happened.
Even so, there was no repercussions in the real world about that until four years later.
And that was obviously after Julie Brown had done her amazing reporting in the Miami Herald, which appeared in late 2018, which detailed the allegations and names of so many other Epstein victims in Palm Beach.
And that time, Congress and the Justice Department finally seemed to listen.
And so it was on the heels of that that Geoffrey Epstein was indicted and Annie Farmer appeared in the courtroom.
I saw her there when he went in and faced the judge because of those charges.
Obviously, we know that a couple of weeks later he died.
But Annie Farmer was then one of the four key witnesses in Gillen Maxwell's criminal trial.
And as we know, Maria Farmer has been completely vindicated in the Epstein files that have now been released because her original complaint in 1996 to the FBI about what happened to her at the hands of Maxwell and Epstein is in there.
We're going to open up the phone lines here, Vicki Ward, for you.
We want to welcome our viewers to this conversation.
Vicki Ward will take your comments and your questions this morning.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
Democrats 202-748-8000.
Independents 202-748-8002.
You can text if you don't want to call at 202-748-8003.
Vicki Ward, I want to play for you what the former Secretary of State and First Lady Hillary Clinton had to say to reporters about her husband's deposition that will happen today in New York.
I think the chronology of the connection that he had with Epstein ended years, several years before anything about Epstein's criminal activities came to life and that he was charged and sadly given a sweetheart deal, which, as I said in my statement, had that not happened, perhaps his predatory behavior could have been stopped earlier.
But I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of people who had contact with him before his criminal pleas in 2008 were like most people.
They did not know what he was doing.
And I think that that is exactly what my husband will testify to tomorrow.
Vicki Ward, your reaction to hearing Hillary Clinton say that's what her husband will testify on today before the House Oversight Committee, that he was not aware of what Jeffrey Epstein was doing.
Yeah, well, I think that that probably is true.
Nonetheless, I think, you know, Bill Clinton, unlike Hillary Clinton, who never knew Epstein, and I think it was, you know, ridiculous having her go in and testify yesterday.
But Bill Clinton, I think, does have to answer some questions about judgment, because we know from the photographs that he was surrounded when he got on Epstein's plane by a large number of young women.
And you have to remember, this was two years after Bill Clinton had left office in the middle of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
And, you know, I do know businessmen who went to Epstein's house for Clinton-related events, for the Clinton Global Initiative-related events in the early 2000s, and who immediately felt that something was wrong, that the optics of all these young women running around sort of proffering drinks felt unusual and wrong and inappropriate, and they left.
And I think the question that Bill Clinton will be asked is: why did you not only not lead, but why did you continue to get on that plane?
He went on the plane, I think, a total of four times.
Now, obviously, being surrounded by a bunch of young women is very different from knowing about the sexual abuse of minors.
So I think it's the difference between bad judgment and complicitness in criminal activity.
Those two things are very, very different.
Have you investigated any allegations or do you know of any allegations by any women associated with Jeffrey Epstein against the former president?
No.
Nobody I've spoken to has ever suggested that Bill Clinton took part in any sexual abuse.
Front page of the Washington Post this morning.
The Justice Department said Thursday that it is examining whether wrongfully, wrongly withheld FBI files that contain allegations against President Donald Trump in its release of millions of pages from the investigatory files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Three summaries of interviews the FBI conducted in 2019 with a woman who had accused Trump of sexually assaulting her are missing from the files.
Multiple news outlets have reported this.
The woman had accused Trump of sexually assaulting her decades earlier when she was a minor.
No evidence has emerged publicly to corroborate that accusation.
Vicki Ward, what do you make of this accusation and the missing files?
So I think that it's really troubling and it reiterates the continued incompetence at best and sort of seeming cover-up at worst by the Justice Department when it comes to releasing these Epstein files.
I mean, I think it's important to note that, you know, I've been reading the reports about these documents and certainly when I read them, this woman doesn't seem credible.
I mean, even The Guardian described her claims as outlandish.
And I will note that in the 1980s, which is when this woman claims this stuff happened, there is no known instance of Jeffrey Epstein abusing young girls in that time period.
It wasn't till much later in the early 1990s when he acquired all his money and his houses and the plane and the island that that's when, and he was with Glenn Maxwell, that he started the abuse.
So there are lots of problems with the story and the allegations against Trump, but the bigger problem is why they're not in the files.
When Pam Bondi, Attorney General, has come out and said we've released all the documents.
Well, no, they haven't.
And I think Hillary Clinton was well within her rights when she said, I don't know what you're doing interviewing me.
You should be interviewing, you know, the person in the files who, one, is in office now.
And two, there are actual allegations against because there were nothing like that about Hillary Clinton in there.
First phone call for Vicki Ward.
Rhonda in Napa, California, Democratic Caller.
Hi, good morning, and thank you for your good work.
As a survivor and as representing women in the Northern California area, I was wondering what it is that we can do or you or people such as you can do to help bring the pain and the hurt that we're all feeling as a sisterhood to bring it forward so that we can all heal.
I appreciate you.
Thank you.
Well, thank you so much.
I mean, I think that the honest answer to that is keep up the pressure.
Bill Gates' Influence00:16:29
I think the job of the media is to be relentless and to persevere and to keep going through these voluminous files and to try to connect the dots, which I think you've seen we have been doing.
I think the survivors are doing a fantastic job of keeping the pressure up in the media and keeping the pressure on Congress.
I mean, I think let's not lose sight of the fact that although this rollout of the Epstein files has been totally botched, nonetheless, these brave women have come a very, very long way.
And the fact that they got Congress almost unanimously to pass this Epstein Transparency Act is very, very meaningful.
And I think they have the will of the people behind them.
And that's really important because the political tide will shift.
But Congress, hopefully in the short term, will not forget and will not abandon these women and will keep going and not rest until there are answers.
Hannah Phillips, who reports for the Palm Beach Post, her piece is featured in USA Today, Vicki Ward.
Epstein hid computers in storage units in Palm Beach County and beyond.
And she reports that newly surfaced documents indicate that Epstein had private investigators remove the computers and lock them in storage units across Palm Beach County and beyond.
Epstein continued making monthly payments to one such facility until 2019, the year he died by suicide in that jail cell.
When asked on February 24th whether it had searched any of Epstein's storage units or recovered the computers hidden in 2005, the FBI referred all inquiries to the Department of Justice, which did not respond to a request for comment.
By 2007, Hannah Phillips reports a federal grand jury had issued subpoenas ordering the private investigators to appear before the grand jury and produce all computer equipment removed from Epstein's Palm Beach residence, any computers ever owned by Epstein and records documenting the relationship between Epstein and the investigators.
And although the subpoenas were directed at the private investigators, Epstein's attorneys moved quickly to intervene.
They asked a federal judge to quash the subpoenas, arguing that forcing the investigators to turn over the computers would violate Epstein's constitutional rights and pierce the confidentiality of his legal defense.
Vicki Ward, what do you recall from these missing computers?
And what do you think needs to happen next?
Yeah, well, you know, when I read that story, I was not surprised because I know from my own reporting that a lot of the allegations against Jeffrey Epstein come from the 1990s and the early 2000s.
And that timeframe, a lot of the documentation from that time period is just not in these files.
Most of the files actually are from 2008, which is when he went to prison for that sweetheart deal, and later.
And a lot of the mystery around Epstein is from the earlier years because we still really don't have a very good explanation as to why Les Wexner gave him complete power of attorney, complete control over all his finances.
I didn't think that Wexner's testimony to Congress remotely began to answer that, actually.
And all the stories that I came across in detail, I mean, I know that Epstein sent me a bunch of documentation about the pharma sisters that he claimed disputed their accounts.
And I've noticed that's not in these files.
So I'm assuming that's in a storage facility somewhere.
So I think it's really important we find these.
Bernard in California, Independent.
Your question or comment here for Vicki Ward?
When is things going to get done?
Well, unfortunately, I don't have a crystal ball on this, right?
I think, you know, I mean, you have seen, it's been fairly remarkable.
It's like, you know, I feel like a domino drops every day.
That the accountability that has happened globally on this is incredibly extensive.
And around the world, I mean, in the country I grew up in, obviously in England, you've got two police investigations that are going on, one of the former Prince Andrew and one of the politician Peter Mandelson, who are alleged to have possibly handed Epstein government secrets.
There are investigations going on in France, investigations going on in Norway.
And, you know, yes, the question is: why are there no investigations going on in the United States?
I think, let's hold on.
I think that these investigations that are going on around the world are interestingly to do with financial secrets, financial issues, more than they are to do with sex.
And I think it takes a while sometimes to piece together money trails.
And so I think there may be breadcrumbs in these files that we just need to follow.
And it will take a while to put them together.
But I am confident that the media is doing a great job of not giving up on this.
Kathy's next.
She's in Michigan, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Cease Ben, Greta, and Ms. Ward.
I want to say, first of all, that the victims that have come forward are extremely brave.
That's not an easy thing to do.
I had an experience as a young woman when I was 21.
I was running, and this man drove by me, and I knew immediately he was dangerous.
I went around the corner, had my plan in place.
He had the hood of his car up.
The car was running, and he was doing something very appropriate in the middle of the street.
I ran around the block, went in someone's backyard, then went to my parents' house about a mile away.
Exactly a week later, I'm cycling to my parents' house, and I'm a block away.
I look up because I'm leaning down.
There he is.
He chased me.
I got into my parents' yard, hopped off the bike, ran into the house, ran to the junk drawer, got a pencil and a piece of paper, wrote down his plate number.
I did think to do that.
He was a rapist out of parole for rape.
I was the only woman who would go to court.
The women would make their reports.
He had been doing this in a certain section of Flint.
This man was white.
It was a predominantly white neighborhood.
And I testified, and I left about five months later.
Women need to be believed.
People should be safe.
We don't need people hurting other people in any form.
Now, Mr. Clinton should have known what he was dealing with with Mr. Epstein.
He is a college-educated individual, and he should have known.
I'm not going to make excuses for people because they were the president.
I really hope that this investigation helps the people.
And I'm not just talking about women.
I'm talking about children.
I'm talking about all peoples who are abused by others.
Mr. Epstein got away with it because they have a lot of money.
And that's the defining difference between the man who tried to hurt me and Mr. Epstein.
Kathy's thoughts there.
Vicki Ward.
Well, you know, I'm so sorry that that happened to you and kudos to you for writing down that plate and testifying because that is not easy.
I think that what you say about the difference being in the money is right on the money.
I think it's even a little bit more than that.
Why did Bill Clinton get on that plane regardless of the optics of all these young women who I, you know, I don't know if they were minors or if they were of age, but they were young women.
Well, not just because it was a free plane ride, but because Epstein was also giving money to, or would go on to give money to the Clinton Global Initiative.
And so, you know, I think that what we've really seen in the Epstein files is just how transactional the world of the global elite really is.
And so these men were getting something from Epstein.
Sometimes it was money.
Sometimes it was insider information.
Sometimes it was introductions to useful billionaires.
And in return, Epstein got protection.
They may not have even realized they were giving it, but he got the veneer of respectability and their protection.
And I think we have learned in black and white through these files that there are two tiers of justice in this country, as you so vividly pointed out, and that there is one rule of law for most people and almost no rule of law for the global elite.
From the USA Today, fallout from Epstein files widens to include Larry Summers, former Treasury Secretary, who announced he would resign from Harvard University.
The story, Vicki Ward goes on to note that Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder, discussed the Epstein records this week on February 24th during a Gates Foundation town hall.
And in the town hall, Bill spoke candidly, addressing several questions in detail and took responsibility for his actions, the foundation said.
What do you make of that?
Well, I think kudos to Bill Gates because he didn't do anything criminal.
But nonetheless, going back to the optics of Bill Clinton getting on that plane, the optics of Bill Gates in these files is pretty bad.
And, you know, the draft letter that Epstein wrote that I don't think he sent, there's no evidence that he sent it to Bill Gates.
Very lurid allegations in that of sort of SDDs and cover-ups behind Bill Gates's wife's back, all sorts of things.
And I mean, let's not forget when Epstein died, he made the executor of his will was a guy called Boris Nikolic, who had been Bill Gates' right-hand man at one point.
I mean, Nikolic was so stunned that he fainted.
So I think that Bill Gates is obviously not a man in public office, but he is an extraordinarily powerful global figure.
And I think he understood clearly that if he was going to continue to have the influence and the clout, he needed to come clean.
And he needed to say, this is what happened.
I'm not proud of it.
It's not illegal, but I'm not proud of it.
I wish I exercised poor judgment.
He needed to do a mayor culpa.
And I think, you know, there are many other businessmen who should perhaps follow his lead on this.
Wayne City, Illinois, Carla is a Republican, and it's your turn.
Yeah, thanks for having me on.
I just would like to ask, now when Chelsea Clinton got married, there had to be a wedding list, right?
And if Jelaine Maxwell was a guest of a guest, how come they won't publish who the guest was?
I mean, that's kind of the same thing.
I can tell you who the guest is.
I know exactly who the guest is.
The guest was Ted Waite, who is a billionaire, tech billionaire who lived on the west coast of the United States.
And he was Gillenn Maxwell's boyfriend.
He was also, I mean, I met him.
He's a nice guy.
And he was a big Clinton donor.
And Gillenne Maxwell was at the time his girlfriend and came as his plus one.
And it's probably important to remember that 2010 is the year before Virginia Jaffray first went public with her allegations about Gillenn Maxwell being involved with Jeffrey Epstein.
So as far as the world knew, they knew that Jeffrey Epstein was a convicted sex offender in 2010.
And we obviously know that Bill Clinton would have known how tight Gillenne Maxwell had once been with Jeffrey Epstein.
But the world hadn't at that point pointed a finger at Gillenne Maxwell.
I had tried to in my Vanity Fair piece eight years prior, but those allegations had been cut.
So, you know, that is why Gillenne Maxwell showed up at Chelsea Clinton's wedding.
And it was shortly after that when Virginia Geoffrey went public and, you know, Ted Waite started getting phone calls, I think, from lawyers of some of the survivors from Palm Beach that he first became aware of what his girlfriend had been tied up in.
And they broke up soon after.
A caller earlier said, as a former president, would there not have been vetting of the guest list for Chelsea's wedding?
Would they have not done their due diligence about Ms. Maxwell showing up at this wedding, even if she was a guest of a guest?
Of course they would.
And this is where, unfortunately, money talks and global influence talks.
Of course, they knew she'd been involved with Jeffrey Epstein.
But Gillenne Maxwell was somebody who was very, very visible at a lot of Clinton Global Initiative events.
And they knew that she knew a lot of famous, well-connected, very successful people.
And they knew that, in fact, it was her, is my understanding, who had sort of prodded Jeffrey Epstein to give money to their philanthropic organization.
I think she had done a very good job, as I understand it, of sucking up to Chelsea Clinton.
Chelsea Clinton invited her on various vacations.
And Gillenne Maxwell, as I know, you know, I knew her, was often out and about in New York by herself.
Clemency and Confession00:01:38
I mean, most of us had no idea that this man, Jeffrey Epstein, even existed.
And when Ghillenne Maxwell wanted to be, she was very, very charming and very skillful at name-dropping.
And we all thought, you know, before we'd ever heard of Jeffrey Epstein, that she had an incredibly glamorous and exotic and important sounding life.
Weren't quite sure exactly what she did, but you know, she could, she was very good at pulling the wool over people's eyes.
And I think that they would have vetted her, yes, but they wouldn't have necessarily known at that point what to look for.
What did you make of her deposition to the House Oversight Committee?
Of Gillenne Maxwell's deposition.
Well, she pleaded the, I mean, she didn't say anything, right?
Right.
So, because she's got, at this point, everything to lose.
I mean, she's she's filed an appeal.
She wants clemency.
She asked for clemency from President Trump.
And so she's not going.
And she said, you know, obviously she would, if she was granted clemency or she was granted immunity, then she'd be prepared to tell everything she knows.
But I mean, her, I mean, I think it became quite clear.
Her goal is to get out of we're going to leave this here, but you can finish watching at c-span.org as we take you live to Corpus Christi, Texas, where President Trump is getting a briefing on energy policy.