Former Vanity Fair editor denies Clinton tried to censor Epstein report

A former Vanity Fair editor defended the thesis that former President Bill Clinton did not try to censor the magazine’s reporting on the sex trafficking scandals of the late magnate and financier Jeffrey Epstein.

In a 2011 email to journalist Sharon Churcher, Epstein whistleblower and victim Virginia Giuffre discussed her book and mentioned that she investigated Vanity Fair magazine after they told her they wanted to write an article about her story.

“When I was doing some research into VF yesterday, it does concern me what they could want to write about me considering that B.Clinton walked into VF and threatened them not to write sex-trafficing (sic) articles about his good friend J.E.,” says the email. “Should I be asking what is this story [...] pertaining to?”

However, journalist Graydon Carter, who served as editor of Vanity Fair between 1992 and 2017, told The Telegraph that it “categorically did not happen.”

Giuffre’s email to Churcher came to light in a second batch of declassified documents related to Giuffre’s own 2015 lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s girlfriend and accomplice in his sex trafficking crimes.

The legal conflict between Giuffre and Maxwell was resolved privately, with an agreement between the parties. A similar case occurred with Prince Andrew, who was also sued by Giuffre and reached a deal with Epstein’s victim.

Did someone else threaten Vanity Fair or not?

Although Carter exonerated the former Democratic president of threatening the magazine so it would not investigate the Epstein case, Vicky Ward, a former editor and contributor, said on CNN that perhaps Giuffre was confused between the story and the character.

Ward explained that she also never heard of Clinton censoring Epstein’s story; however, she clarified that, in 2002, Epstein himself appeared at the Vanity Fair offices to pressure the magazine so that he would not report on Maria and Annie Farmer’s accusations of sexual abuse against the tycoon, who was found dead in 2019 in a cell.

According to the magazine’s former editor, the threats had the desired effect because the accusations were removed from the article.

Ward was one of the journalists who wrote a profile piece on Epstein two decades ago. Initially, she was investigating the source of Epstein’s enormous wealth and not any alleged sexual misconduct.