Inside The Epstein Files: Journalist Vicky Ward On The Money, The Abuse, & The Men Involved
Investigative journalist Vicky Ward visited Jeffrey Epstein’s home in the early 2000s — and she says the red flags were impossible to miss. On a special edition of Mo News’ premium Ask Mo Anything podcast, Ward tells Mosheh that’s why men named in the Epstein files cannot plausibly deny knowing Epstein was engaging in misconduct.
Ward (Vicky Ward Investigates on Substack) says the latest emails and documents, released by the Department of Justice under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, provide further proof: “All these men who said, ‘Oh, yeah, you know, I really hardly knew him.’ Well, the proof is there for us to see. They absolutely did know him.”
REWIND: Ward first covered Jeffrey Epstein in 2002, before there were any allegations against him regarding child abuse or sex trafficking. Her assignment for Vanity Fair at the time was to dig into how he made his money. But she ended up uncovering his abuse of two underage girls — and got a first-hand look at how he lied, manipulated, and threatened those who aimed to expose him.
Editors blocked Ward from including reporting of the abuse in the first article (we discuss that in the podcast). The details were later exposed when Epstein pled guilty to child prostitution in Florida in 2008 and was charged with sex trafficking in 2019.
Ward sat down with Mosheh on Thursday for a wide-ranging conversation about all things Epstein — including what’s missing from the latest DOJ documents, whether President Trump is hiding anything, and why it’s unlikely Epstein was working for the CIA or Mossad (as theories have suggested).
WHAT’S IN THE DOCUMENTS
Millions of documents released by the DOJ in recent weeks reveal Epstein at the center of two vast networks: one where he was engaging in and coordinating sexual abuse of minors, and another where he connected rich power brokers.
Ward says Epstein approached both in the same way: “Jeffrey Epstein was a brilliant manipulator, not only of young, teenage, vulnerable girls. He was actually a brilliant manipulator of the uber elite.” Sometimes, she says, there was crossover between the two networks.
On Trump: President Trump’s name appears in at least 4,500 documents, including references to a 2016 “Jane Doe” rape allegation involving an accuser who said she was 13 at the time. The case was voluntarily dismissed the same year, and Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing tied to Epstein.
But Ward, who covered Trump in New York before he became president, says she believes his frustration — and often anger — toward reporters asking about Epstein stems more from his inability to control the narrative than from culpability in any crime: “It’s that Trump just can’t get a lid on this. And Trump is used to being in charge of the narrative.”
WHAT’S STILL MISSING
Ward points out that most of the documents are from after the year 2000, which leaves out the prior decades when Epstein accumulated much of his wealth. “Without the money, there would have been no sex crimes,” Vicky says. “When Jeffrey Epstein had no money in the 1970s and 1980s, there's no evidence at all that he indulged in this sort of predatory behavior.”
Vicky calls attention to the minimal mentions of Ohio billionaire Les Wexner — former CEO of Victoria’s Secret and other brands — who is widely known to have given Epstein massive credibility and access to wealth by hiring Epstein as his money manager.
Wexner is set to testify before Congress about his relationship with Epstein on Feb. 18, after the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform subpoenaed him. He is expected to fully cooperate — unlike Epstein’s convicted conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, who will be deposed Monday.
Epstein the spy? Mosheh and Ward also address the various theories that Epstein may have been working for the CIA, Mossad (Israel’s intelligence agency), or Russia’s intelligence service. She calls it highly unlikely, considering he was essentially running his own intelligence agency within his network of connections. “He’s a one man intelligence operation with the ability to blackmail some of the most powerful people on earth,” Mosheh concludes.
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