The Epstein/Maxwell story has, in a sense, always boiled down to Prince Andrew & Virginia Roberts Giuffre. Very few people outside of Palm Beach had heard of Epstein before that infamous photo—taken in March 2001 of a then-17yo Giuffre—first appeared in a British tabloid in 2011.
The picture was reportedly taken at Ghislaine Maxwell’s London home.
There is Andrew, in a white button-down shirt, top button undone, with his arm around the bare midriff of the 17-year-old Giuffre. Smiling proudly off to the side, like some sort of triumphant mama hen, is Ghislaine Maxwell. And Epstein? He’s said to have taken the photo.
Giuffre says that was the night she first met Prince Andrew and was first trafficked to him—the first of three times they’d have sex, according to a 2014 Florida court filing.
Andrew told the BBC’s @maitlis that he has “absolutely no memory of that photograph ever being taken” and that “you can’t prove whether or not that photograph is faked or not because it is a photograph of a photograph of a photograph.” (Giuffre gave the original to the FBI.)
There is still much to learn about the relationship between Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein. I get into some of their strangely competitive dynamic in Episode 9 of “Chasing Ghislaine” — audible.com/pd/Episode-9-G…
In 2014, the British tabloid The Mail on Sunday re-ran the photograph. This time, it came with a legal claim from Virginia that was supported by court papers she’d filed in Florida—that she was being trafficked to Prince Andrew as a sex slave.
There’s even more in Episode 10 about the chain of events that set off: audible.com/pd/Episode-10-…
No one could have foreseen the long-term consequences that a single photo could have. But that picture was, in many ways, the snowball that gets us to the avalanche of today. And there's more yet to come...

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More from @VickyPJWard

10 Aug
Two years ago today, Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in New York. Many people remain unconvinced by the coroner’s suicide ruling. To this day, there remain questions about the circumstances surrounding his death.
The guards on duty the night Epstein died were supposed to check inmates twice an hour. But footage shows them at their desks, browsing the Internet, and sleeping for more than two hours of their shifts. npr.org/2021/05/22/999…
The surveillance footage taken from outside Jeffrey Epstein's jail cell on the day of his first apparent suicide attempt was accidentally destroyed, allegedly due to “clerical error.” nbcnews.com/news/us-news/s…
Read 8 tweets
21 Jul
I was thrilled to join @danprimack on @AxiosReCap today to discuss yesterday’s arrest of Tom Barrack whose indictment raises some really, really troubling questions. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ins…
I heard the name Tom Barrack as far back as 2014 when I was writing a book about the world of New York real estate. He was a big connector between the New York players and the money in the Middle East.
I wrote a whole book—"Kushner, Inc."—around the allegation that the Trump Administration’s foreign policy was run basically as one big effort to bail out Jared Kushner’s family’s financial problems.

Tom Barrack was the man in the middle.
Read 17 tweets
20 Jul
My sources in NY real estate are asking if the indictment against Tom Barrack is actually about Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) violations or if it’s just another way to get to Trump, if Weisselberg does not talk.
The other speculation is that this is a way to get to Kushner, since Barrack’s dealings were more with Kushner than Trump.
Tom Barrack’s connections are all over the place, and he has long had his name tied with allegations of crony capitalism.
Read 22 tweets
19 Jul
Jeffrey Epstein wanted the world to think he was some amazing money manager for billionaires only. But the story is so much more complicated than that. He was many things: A sexual predator, a con artist, an embezzler, an arms dealer, and part of an intelligence network.
There’s been a lot of focus on Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual crimes. My podcast “Chasing Ghislaine” is not really about that. Instead, it’s about the men—the circle of male power that surrounded Jeffrey Epstein and enabled his sex-trafficking enterprise.
There have been many boldface names associated with Epstein: Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Trump, Prince Andrew, financier Leon Black, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, retail king Les Wexner. These men are why we are still talking about Jeffrey Epstein two years later.
Read 5 tweets
15 Jul
When I was assigned to write about Jeffrey Epstein in 2002, I spoke to him almost daily for several months for my reporting. Our conversations were originally off the record, but we’re releasing them now in the public interest in “Chasing Ghislaine.” audible.com/ghislaine
In re-reading the transcripts, I was struck by his staggering, untempered misogyny. But I could also see now—given all we've learned since 2002—where he had blatantly lied. Some of the lies were so bizarre, they clearly told me something. So I went out and re-reported the story.
I have spent almost 20 years on this story, but I did not do it alone. I want to thank everyone who spoke to me for my original article, for my reporting since then, and for the podcast.
Read 8 tweets
26 Jan
Thank you to @morningmika, @JoeNBC, and @WillieGeist for having me and @Fahrenthold on @Morning_Joe today to talk about the Trump family’s financial future.

A few thoughts:
As @fahrenthold has reported, the Trump business has real financial problems. Banks are running.  washingtonpost.com/politics/trump…
But, as I noted, the Kushners—thanks to Trump’s pardon of Charles Kushner—are now extremely liquid and ARE very bankable. A couple of my sources say the idea of the Kushners buying the Trump assets is now being seriously discussed. They may just strip his name off the properties.
Read 6 tweets

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