ABC says Epstein accuser interview wasn’t ready

ABC News faced questions Tuesday about its reluctance to air a sensitive story of alleged sexual misconduct after a leaked video emerged of reporter Amy Robach complaining about how her bosses handled an interview with a Jeffrey Epstein accuser.

The conservative website Project Veritas released video of Robach venting that “every day I get more and more pissed” that her 2015 interview with Virginia Giuffre never made the air. Robach made her remarks late in August while sitting in a Times Square studio with a microphone but not on the air.

ABC said Tuesday that the interview didn’t meet its standards because it lacked sufficient corroborating evidence. Robach, coanchor of ABC’s “20/20” newsmagazine, said the leaked video caught her “in a private moment of frustration.”

The episode was reminiscent of Ronan Farrow’s accusations that NBC News discouraged his reporting on Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s misconduct. Farrow then took his Pulitzer Prizewinning story to the New Yorker magazine.

ABC sought to minimize the comparison, saying it has pursued and aired other stories about Epstein, the New York financier who died Aug. 10 while in police custody on sex trafficking charges.