- A Jeffrey Epstein victim claimed Bill Clinton "threatened" Vanity Fair not to write about the pedophile.
- Vanity Fair sources say the incident straight-up didn't happen.
- Accuser Virginia Giuffre's allegations were included in a set of newly unsealed court records.
One of Jeffrey Epstein's victims claimed former President Bill Clinton tried to stop Vanity Fair from publishing stories about the now-dead pedophile's sex trafficking of girls, according to a newly unsealed email.
Sources who worked at the magazine around that time, however, categorically denied it ever happened.
In the email, dated May 30, 2011, accuser Virginia Giuffre weighed whether to to speak to Vanity Fair about a story the magazine planned to publish about Prince Andrew, one of Epstein's friends.
She said she was "doing some research" into the magazine and understood that Clinton "threatened them" not to write about Epstein.
"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-trafficking articles about his good friend J.E." Giuffre wrote in the email. "Should l be asking what is this story their writing pertaining to?"
Giuffre signed the email as "Jenna," a nickname she used at the time.
Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair's editor-in-chief at the time, denied the incident to the Telegraph.
"This categorically did not happen," Carter said.
A different former high-ranking Vanity Fair editor told Business Insider that the story doesn't make any sense.
The source, who spoke to Business Insider on the condition of anonymity, said that Carter, who led Vanity Fair between 1992 and 2017, despised Clinton.
"Graydon hated Bill Clinton. We were pro Monica Lewinsky all the way," the former Vanity Fair editor told Business Insider. "If you remember, Graydon published a huge Monica story about what a creep shithead Bill Clinton was."
The relationship between Vanity Fair and Clinton was always a frigid one, the source said. And any relationship was "completely destroyed" after the magazine published a prominent 2008 story about Clinton's post-White House life, digging up details about his business dealings and relationships and rumored skirt-chasing, according to the source.
"Virginia Giuffre — I feel horrific for what she's gone through. It's tragic," the former Vanity Fair editor told Business Insider. "Jeffrey Epstein is one of the worst people who's ever roamed the earth — but that was just never the case."
More documents are coming
The email from Giuffre was included in a set of documents unsealed Thursday evening from a 2015 lawsuit she filed against Epstein's associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
The lawsuit was settled in 2017, but in the years since, a judge has unsealed numerous documents, ranging from depositions to routine legal arguments. In the latest round of unsealing, US District Judge Loretta Preska ruled that documents naming around 170 previously anonymous "Does" should be released. Some of the Does are Epstein's powerful friends, while others are his victims, household employees, and other individuals who were merely incidentally mentioned in court filings.
The first batch of documents from Preska's most recent order — about 950 pages — were unsealed on Wednesday.
Additional documents will be made public on Friday and Monday, a source familiar with the rollout told Business Insider.
Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. In the years before his death, and particularly before a 2008 jail sentence on prostitution solicitation charges, he socialized and explored business opportunities with famous and well-connected people, including Clinton and Prince Andrew.
Clinton has denied any wrongdoing. Prince Andrew has denied wrongdoing as well, and in 2022 settled a separate civil lawsuit brought by Giuffre, which accused him of sexual abuse. Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence after a jury found her guilty of trafficking girls to Epstein for sex.
Vanity Fair published a profile of Epstein in 2003, which did not include allegations of sexual abuse.
The journalist who wrote the story, Vicky Ward, said later that two women — sisters Maria and Annie Farmer — told her about Epstein sexually abusing her, but that Carter declined to include their accounts in the finished story. Carter has said that Ward's reporting about the Farmer sisters "did not meet our legal and editorial standards."
Whatever the relationship between Clinton and Carter, little love has been lost. A person close to the former president told Business Insider that Carter should be blamed for not publishing the allegations against Epstein.
"It would have been great for Graydon Carter to have exhibited this level of sympathy for the victims back in 2003 when he had the opportunity to expose Epstein's heinous crimes," the person close to Clinton said. "Instead, as Vicky Ward has stated numerous times, he gutted her reporting."
In her Substack newsletter Thursday night, Ward wrote that if Clinton ever came to Vanity Fair's office, she "did not know about it." Epstein himself, however, did reportedly meet with Carter at the office about the story.
Many emails unsealed Thursday show Giuffre communicating with Sharon Churcher, the journalist who first published her allegations about Epstein in The Daily Mail in 2011.
In the emails, Giuffre explored opportunities for a book deal and other media projects about her experience.
When Ed Klein, a journalist for Vanity Fair, wanted to interview Giuffre for a story about Prince Andrew, Churcher advised Giuffre not to talk with the magazine, saying she ought to save details for her book, which was never ultimately completed or published.
"My strong instinct is not to help him — not even to take his calls — as there is no upside in giving away one of THE selling points in the book," Churcher wrote to Giuffre.
Vanity Fair published the story about Prince Andrew a few months later.
While it recounted what Giuffre told The Daily Mail, it ultimately didn't have a new interview with her.
This story has been updated with a comment from a person close to former President Bill Clinton.