ABC News on Wednesday confirmed that it is pursuing the “source” of a leaked video that showed anchor Amy Robach expressing frustration with the network for not broadcasting an interview she conducted in 2015 with one of Jeffrey Epstein’s chief accusers.
“We take violations of company policy very seriously, and we’re pursuing all avenues to determine the source of the leak,” the network said in a statement provided to The Hollywood Reporter.
On Tuesday, the conservative advocacy group Project Veritas published the video, which it said it obtained from an ABC “insider” who still works at the network. “The video from our insider speaks for itself, they are still at ABC, and we are in contact,” founder James O’Keefe said in an email.
On Wednesday, journalist Yashar Ali reported that ABC has identified the individual who accessed the Robach video. But, he wrote, they “don’t know if that person leaked the footage to Project Veritas, the right-wing activist group, or if they shared it with others who leaked the footage.”
The leak investigation is reminiscent of an effort undertaken in the fall of 2017 after the website Mediaite published a leaked video of MSNBC anchor Lawrence O’Donnell that was not meant for broadcast. It was reported, at the time, that the employee was identified and terminated.
“It’s pretty messed up that that was leaked,” MSNBC host Chris Hayes told THR in an interview at the time. “Just because, like, it’s a space that we’re all sort of trusting each other in.”
Robach addressed the video Tuesday in a statement. “As a journalist, as the Epstein story continued to unfold last summer, I was caught in a private moment of frustration,” she said in part.
