Virginia Giuffre's Truth and Epstein and Maxwell's Lies

But, um, why don't we go ahead and start? People will probably join us in progress. Um, and I'm very excited to have this conversation for the people who are joining us. As you all probably know, it's been 3 days since the publication of Virginia Roberts Giuffre's posthumous memoir. It's called *Nobody's Girl, a Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice*. And it is a harrowing and heartbreaking account of Virginia's early life, as well as how she was groomed and abused by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. Uh, she met them when she was just 16 years old, as a teenager, at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

So, I'm really pleased and feel quite honored to have Amy Wallace join us because Amy spent 4 years working very closely with Virginia as the ghostwriter of this book, and she's here to tell us more about that experience and about Virginia, or Jenna, as she was known by her family and loved ones. And Amy, I, I so appreciate you spending some time with us today on this Substack. And I was curious because I didn't really see this anywhere else. How did you become involved in this project? And by the way, I just want to say Amy has a very illustrious career in print journalism and has worked many places, written some fabulous books, and has, uh, you know, got some great Pulitzers when she was at the LA Times. So, um, I just want to tell you, I'm, I'm really honored that a journalist of your stature, Amy, is talking to me today. So, how, how did you all connect in the first place?

Well, first of all, thank you for that, and thank you for having me on. Um, I'm a huge fan of yours, and I also admire you and what you did for women in journalism. Um, so, let's just put that there. Um, so, I'm thrilled to be talking to you. I, uh, you know, when somebody wants to write a book, um, they talk to various ghostwriters, and there are a bunch of us out there. Um, and, and they look for somebody with whom they have a fit, you know, a click. It doesn't have to be that we're going to be best friends, but you're, you're going to spend a lot of time together. And so, I think she, she talked to, I, I don't know how many people she talked to. Um, uh, we had a Zoom. She was in Australia, I was in California. Um, and, uh, I, I, I believe she wanted to work with a woman for some obvious reasons of comfort. She was going to describe some of the most difficult things she'd ever experienced in her life to this person, whoever she hired. Um, I also sensed that she, she wanted, you know, I've been a journalist for more than 30 years. I worked at major newspapers, I've worked at major magazines, I've written two other collaborative books. I understand how to interrogate a story, how to fact-check a story, uh, how to corroborate a story, and the importance of that. I think there's a mystery around how ghostwriting works that we just kind of, you know, tape-record somebody talking and then transcribe it and clean it up and put it between the covers of a book. That's, that's not ever the way I've worked, and I know the, the best ghostwriters do not work that way. You do a lot of reporting around the person. Um, so, we, we met, and she decided to, uh, to hire me, and I was supposed to be her invisible ghostwriter. I wish that she was here talking to you herself. This is her triumph, her book. Um, but I'm very honored to be able to speak in any way on her behalf. I loved her.

Well, it's very beautifully and painfully written, as you know better than anyone, really, Amy. How, uh, traumatic Virginia's life was. I don't, I don't even think there are words that kind of describe the depth of, um, abuse and, uh, trauma that she endured, starting at age 7. And we'll, we'll get to that in a moment. But I think you did a really good job. I know a lot of the writing was hers, but you did an incredible job of shepherding in the story. And I'm sure it was really hard for her to write. Although, I'm curious, did it feel cathartic for Virginia, or, or did you have to really pull things out of her?

Well, in some ways, the way to answer this question is to talk about what her main motivation was for writing the book. Um, her big goal, and she says this, uh, in the, in the final chapter particularly, but throughout the book, her big goal was to help anyone else on Earth who had ever been coerced into a sexual situation that they did not want to be part of. Not just Epstein and Maxwell victims, but anyone, male or female. And there are so many of those people among us. Um, she wanted them to feel less alone. She wanted them to understand that she understood the shame they felt. Um, and the, the difficulty that you, you carry every day, every morning, trying to get out of bed when you have these memories of being made to feel worthless. Um, and she, it's part of the way she made decisions about what we would include in the book. Whenever something difficult happened to her, or, or something messy, or something embarrassing, she wanted it in the book. Because she kept saying to me, "I don't ever want to say to other victims, uh, you know, you can just get over it. All you got to do is, you know, just get past it, get a little therapy, and, and maybe win a settlement or two like I did, and, and, and now I'm good. You should be good, too." She never wanted to send that message. She wanted to show.

During the writing of this book, she attempted to take her own life. Previously, there was a, a terrible, terrible set of circumstances that were going on in terms of litigation at that period, and she was having a really hard time reliving, reliving, being asked to relive, um, what had happened to her, and she was in fear for her life. And the minute she recovered from trying to hurt herself, we got on the phone, and she said, "I want that in the book. I want people to know the lasting damage of trauma. Because only then will people get angry enough to try to do something about it." You know, this is, this stuff that we're writing about here is not just about two apex predators who are monsters, you know, rarities. This is about something that's going on in our culture. It's fetishization of young girls and misogyny. And that women who come forward, who say that they have been hurt, particularly when they say they've been hurt by powerful, wealthy men, are [ __ ] who shouldn't be believed. And, and that's gone on since the beginning of this. Virginia was not the first person to come forward. She was the first person to come forward and put her name on it. But Annie Farmer and Maria Farmer, they came forward before and went to the FBI and tried to get something done about this. And nothing was done. So, it's been going on for, for decades now. We've been waiting for somebody to do their jobs in law enforcement. And there are numerous women, brave women, not just Virginia, who have come forward and helped them with that. And still, we have nothing to show for it. So, so there were, I, I say all that because Virginia was such an open-hearted, loving person, which is in itself a triumph. When you've been betrayed the way she was betrayed by people in your life, um, you could just shut down, say, "I don't trust anyone." Um, and she wanted to make this world a better place for all of us, for our kids, not just hers. Uh, so, in that way, the, the book is a, a tough road at times. She, she does. We tried to make it. She turns to the reader at times during the book. She says, "Look, I know this is a lot. I, I live with it every day, and I know it's hard to read. Please keep coming with me. Please, I will help you with it." And we, we show you a beautiful scene for life that's present to give you a break. But the first half of the book is tough. Uh, but, but we tried to present her as a woman in full, you know, she was complex, and she had her highs and her lows, and she had resilience, and she had, you know, moments of total weakness where she felt worthless. And she wanted all of it in there. And we, we chart the arc of her happy childhood, then horrible childhood, then then Epstein and Maxwell, then escape, an amazing, brave, and kind of unbelievable escape where she, she meets somebody, and she falls in love, and she moves to Australia, changes her name, and then a peaceful period of having kids and being a mom, and then deciding to become an advocate, and then sort of going through the grinder that that brings, the death threats, you know, the people breaking into your house, the people threatening your children. Um, so, it takes you on that entire arc. And, and even though obviously she died in April, tragically, way too young, at the age of 41, um, but I still think that there's inspiration in this book. Um, she was a person who was willing to stand up for all of us. She was, she didn't graduate from high school. She didn't have any money when she was a small, you know, when she was growing up. She was just an average woman who went through the meat grinder and kept on fighting. And it's, it's she's an American hero, if you ask me.

She, you know, you describe her as this loving, open-hearted person, but also with this undercurrent of fierce determination. So, she was, I think you did a good job of presenting her as a woman in full. And I think one of the interesting things I wanted to ask you about before we talk about the real guts of of her story is the forward that you wrote after Virginia died by suicide in April. Um, and that provided more context into what she was dealing with in the months leading up to her death. Can you tell us why you wrote it and kind of what was transpiring and why it was important, not only, I guess, mostly to Virginia's family, right? Because she didn't know you were writing this forward before she died. This happened after she died.

Well, Virginia's family, who I adore, um, and they were very helpful to me and continue to be helpful. We're, we're in daily contact right now, um, sharing what we're both, a lot of, we're all speaking out on behalf of Virginia. Um, they, I was already, I'd already written a preface, and I'll back up and explain why, and then, and then they expressed some, some concerns that, that I thought were valid, and we, we re, we, we changed some of the preface to some degree, but I can get into that. Um, so, this here is the chronology. I was, I had gone to Australia twice to live with the family. I lived in their guest room for about a month in total, two different visits. The most recent visit was in October of this past year, uh, right before the presidential election. We had a finished copy of the manuscript for all intents and purposes. We had worked it and reworked it. But I really wanted to sit next to her and go through it word by word one more time. We were getting ready to publish, and I wanted her to know that I'd be with her every step of the way, and that, and that I wanted her to, to, to know and feel like she, this was the book she wanted to publish. So, I went to Australia and we sat together for a couple of days straight, just reading through. Um, there was one scene I was hoping to add, and we, I wrote it there, and then I read it to her. So, there was, you know, the kind of classic back and forth. Um, but by the end of that visit, we had locked the manuscript, meaning she had approved everything in it. I'd brought the, the cover image that we were proposing. She loved it. She approved that. She approved the title, which we'd already been talking about. So, basically, the book was, was locked. Um, it was, was approved, and the, the author has to approve whatever book is going to be published. So, she did that. Um, during the reporting of the book, she had told me about a 2015 incident in which her, her husband had had hurt her. They were living in Colorado. Um, it was a very difficult time for the family. They were being hounded by paparazzi. Um, they were being hounded by scary people breaking into their house. They had three small children, and there was an incident where, where, uh, her husband was charged with domestic violence. Um, she had told me that during the reporting of the book. I talked to her husband about it, cuz I was in Australia, and he was making me breakfast and coffee every morning. Uh, I got to know him pretty well. Um, they both talked about it as a terrible, terrible time in their lives, and Virginia specifically asked me not to include it in the book for the sake of their kids. Um, um, so, when the book was locked, that scene was not in the book. Uh, okay. So, then the October we block it. Then the holidays happen. Then in January, Virginia called me, uh, late one night, my time, or morning her time, and she was hysterical, and she said that there had been another incident, and, and her husband had hurt her again. Um, I made sure she was in a safe place. I, uh, offered to call her mom and her older brother Danny, which I did do. Um, and at that point, obviously, I knew things were not good. At that point, uh, she and her husband were estranged. Um, and there was a battle over the custody, and there were, uh, charges back and forth. Anyway, we could go on and on. Point being, we knew things were bad. And then she, she just statement before her death to People magazine about the 2015 incident that I already knew about. So, now that was public. So, separate and apart from those issues, we knew we were publishing a book that was going to come out. People knew she had died, and it was very public when she committed suicide. So, I was writing a preface to try to help people understand how this book came to pass. That I had received an email from her just weeks before her death saying, "In the case of my passing, I, I want this book published, not just for myself, but for all survivors of sexual abuse. It's an important issue." I want, we wanted to talk a little bit about how we had corroborated her story. Um, the author of the book was no longer alive. And so suddenly I had to step out of the shadows and say, "Look, this was the process." We don't go into the entire fact-checking process or or reporting process, but I reported around her. I know how to do that. I have, I have history doing that. So, there was, it was the preface does several things. It fills you in on process, and then it also talked about what she had made public. My, my commitment is this is her book. I'm going to tell you what she has made public and what I know about personally. Um, and so, we had, we mentioned all of those incidents. Um, those two incidents that I knew about that she had told me about in her, in her home life. Um, and, yeah.

Can I interrupt you for 2 seconds? When, after she called you very upset, that was in January, right, Amy? Did she say, uh, did she change her mind or did she talk to you about including some of these incidents in the book, or was she still at that point trying to protect her husband?

She never even spoke about the book. I mean, you know, it was obviously such an upsetting situation. Um, and she was in fear of losing her kids forever. She was out of contact with her kids at that point. There was a restraining order placed on, she wouldn't even speak to them or text them, which was incredibly painful for her. Her mind was on other things, I think it's fair to say.

Yeah. And we never got to the conversation about what that would mean for the book. Basically, I was just saying, "You need to take care of yourself. Be safe. You know, we'll, we'll, there's no urgency on the publication of the book. Let's, let's just get you in a safe place and, and, and get you the help you need to, to do that." So, there were never any conversations between her and I about what that would mean to the locked book. And before we knew it, she had, she was gone. So, it, it, it was an unusual situation in terms of how then I needed as her, as her co-writer, to step in and fill in some of the blanks. I argued for that preface to be at the end because I felt like this is her book, and I wanted to start with her voice. Um, several people have told me they're glad it's at the beginning because they needed the explanation at the beginning, and I think that was the right call, but, you know.

Because she had, because she had talked about her husband, her then-husband, in, in pretty flattering terms, right? And I think the family, because I spoke to Danny yesterday and, uh, and I think they felt, I think that, that that wasn't a true reflection of the person he actually was and their relationship, right?

Well, it's funny. I mean, I was on, um, the Today show, NBC, I can't even remember where in the past week with not with Danny, uh, but with Sky, uh, Virginia's younger brother, and his wife, Amanda. And Amanda said it best. She said, "You know, people are complicated. Relationships are complicated. Two things can be true at the same time." I think it's fair to say, and, and I've, I've heard Sky and Amanda both say this in interviews in the past week. There was love there between Virginia and her husband. Uh, he, he helped her escape from from Epstein and Maxwell. There's no question of that. Um, they were in Thailand. They met, and he was Australian, and Virginia confided, um, at what she was, the, the trafficking ring that she had been forced into and was living under the power of. And he said, "Well, that's not okay. Come back to Australia with me." And, you know, they created a family together. They loved those children together. Um, I, I obviously no person, woman or a man, should ever be hit or hurt by anyone else. So, I'm not, I'm not saying that, you know, makes up for it or, but, as Amanda has said very eloquently, two things can can be true at the same time.

Yes. That's true. And, uh, as Walt Whitman, off wrote, you know, "We contain multitudes," right? Which I think people sometimes forget. But it did strike me about this cycle of abuse, you know, this harrowing childhood experience, which we can talk about, uh, molested, abused, sexually abused by her father and her father's friend, starting at age seven, right? And then repeatedly through 11? Or was it?

Through 11, yes. When she gets her period.

I'm just like, you know, from, how does a little girl like that, honestly, Amy, have a fighting chance, you know? It's so upsetting.

It is upsetting. And I think there were several things about including that story that Virginia had never told before. She had always said truthfully, "I was abused by a family friend as a child," and that's true, and that, that gentleman is mentioned in the book. What she hadn't said was that the first person to abuse her was her father, um, who has denied that he did so. Um, but, um, she felt strongly about including that in the book for two reasons. One, she felt like, "How can I be accusing my abusers, the bold-faced names who came later, when I'm not willing to talk about the precipitating incident, the original sin, the original betrayal by my own father?" Um, but also, to me, what was important about including that story is to make clear and remind people that victims of sexual trafficking are not born, they are made. And they are made through horrifying experience. Um, there is such an effort by so many for so many years to paint the girls and young women who were in the Epstein orbit as trash, as girls who just party girls, bad girls, girls who wanted money. A- and that that's a way of invalidating their worth and their truth and their experience. And, and what's important to, to know is that is that Ghislaine Maxwell, the chief procurer of Epstein's victims, who also abused them herself, by the way, she had a nose, as did he, for girls who had been hurt before because they were easier to manipulate. They didn't have as high hopes for the world as, as perhaps other children who had been better treated. And so they, they thought, "This is how the world works. Rich men, wealthy men, rape young girls, and they get away with it. That's how it is." So, when people say, "Well, why didn't they just leave? Why, why didn't they just walk out the door if it was so bad?" They didn't believe outside the door was any better than inside the door. The world they lived in over and over was showing them that that predators get away with it. And so, escape was a sort of abstract idea for them. I mean, Virginia valiantly does escape eventually after they ask her to have their child, Ghislaine and Jeffrey, and sign over all rights to that child. And she thinks to herself, "What if the child is female? Not only will I not be able to take care of her, but they may rape her, too." And she decides, even she acknowledges the irony, she had an easier time standing up for this hypothetical baby than she had for herself. But she wasn't going to do that for them. She wasn't going to create another person for them to abuse.

I also thought it was interesting, you know, talking about manipulation and sort of this psychological warfare, that on one level, you know, she liked them, right? She liked Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine, Ghislaine, however you say her name, Maxwell. And, and, you know, it was just this weird kind of relationship. Can you talk about that? About sort of this, I don't know, whether it was kind of, I don't know, you explain if you could.

Yeah. I mean, "I liked them" is maybe not the phrase I would use, and I'm not quibbling, but, but you're getting at a very important part of this, which is, you know, this book describes, for any parents out there, this is the predator's playbook. This is how it works, and it takes you right inside, not just onto the island, onto the private jets, onto the ranch in New Mexico. It takes you all those places, but it, it also really shows you what it's like to be a 16-year-old girl absorbed into this world, and how it works. And here's how it works: As they are degrading you sexually, raping you, as they are degrading you physically and psychologically, they are also saying to you, "We're wealthy, you're poor. We see something in you. You're special. You have potential," and "We get to make that judgment about you because we matter more than you, because we're rich and you're poor." They don't say all these words, but that's the, that's the fabric, okay? And, and "We'll help you get to this better life." And "You're doing such a good job. You, you're special. You're," you know, Jeffrey called Virginia and perhaps others, you know, "You're my number one. You're the one I can always count on. And you'll make a great mother someday." And these kinds of comments that are in, Virginia makes the analogy is almost parental. You know, Ghislaine is teaching her how to use a knife and fork in a proper way. She's buying her outfits. She, this hadn't, these girls either hadn't heard that ever, or hadn't heard it enough. And so, even after going to a hotel to service some stranger, some friend of Epstein, and being forced to have sex with him, she comes back, Epstein says, "You did such a good job." And, "Don't, isn't that what we all want to hear?" And particularly children, "You did such a good job. I'm so proud of you." That was the hook. Not the $200 or whatever they paid each girl for each incident. It wasn't the money, although a lot of these girls needed money and were chosen for their desperation financially. It was, "We see something in you." And in this society, if we see something in you that's more valid than what you see in yourself, because we're rich and powerful. You know, we hear, as I mentioned, the cycle of abuse. I'm just curious, like, what creates these kinds of monsters? You know, what creates a Jeffrey Epstein and a Ghislaine? I always say her name wrong.

It's not Ghislaine. No, it's Ghislaine because it was she has. She has. Well, she's British. She also has a French passport.

Okay. French. Ghislaine Maxwell. Um, you know, I was talking to Tara yesterday who, I, as I mentioned earlier for people who weren't on, did a podcast with Virginia. And I guess there's speculation. I'm curious, that Jeffrey Epstein, both of them were also abused as children. Um, did you see any evidence of that, or was that just not really in your purview writing this book?

Well, Virginia, there's a scene in the book where she asks Jeffrey Epstein. They spent a lot of time together, just the two of them. She traveled with him sometimes alone with him, and, um, she asked him about his childhood. She didn't come out. She says, "I knew better than to ask, were you sexually abused?" But because of his bizarre pseudo-scientific justifications for his behavior, that he could explain, you know, he had to have sex three times a day as a biological necessity, and if he was a, he validated the reasons that he had sex with young girls as long as they used to had started menstruating, they were capable of having a baby, so they were a woman even if they were 12 years old. He had all these bizarre sort of justifications. And she, she had wondered like, what, what you're the exact question you're asking, what formed this person? And so she asks him about his childhood. And he, he knows exactly what she's aiming at and he says, "You know, don't ask me that again." Um, so she speculates that something bad had happened to him in his childhood. We have no way of knowing, I have no way of corroborating that, but, and neither did she, but she wondered about it. Um, I think Ghislaine also, I believe she's the youngest child of many of Robert Maxwell, who died either by suicide or not falling off a yacht, um, named the Lady Ghislaine after his youngest daughter. There are, there is reporting, not my reporting, that I've read about his brutality. Um, I don't know that it was sexual. I have no insight into that, but he was, uh, could be a vicious man. Um, so, yes, the cycle of children being mistreated and growing up to mistreat, it doesn't always happen that way, but it can. I don't, I don't know that we know that. I guess my feeling is, and I know you're not implying this, but it's no excuse.

No, I'm not. Yeah. But I also, I really push back against the idea that I worry about the, the feeling that some people have like, "Well, Jeffrey's dead and Ghislaine, for the moment, unless somebody pardons her, which would be an abomination, um, is in prison. So, thank goodness those crazy predators are are locked up or dead. That's over." It's not over. I mean, not only in this case are there numerous men that Virginia was trafficked to. Um, but I mean, dozens? Some, what she doesn't even know the number.

Don't they say there are a thousand, uh, victims?

Oh, I'm sure there may be twice that. In terms of.

And how, and, and is there even an approximate number of the men and women, quite frankly, who were part of this? I mean, the problem is, you know, the information comes in in fragments. What, what we can write about in this book is Virginia's experience and what she saw and witnessed. But, but remember, if, if, if this is a man who's saying, Jeffrey is saying, "I have to have sex three times a day, preferably with different people." Um, ideally, sometimes with girls who've never had any sort of sexual experience, cuz that was part of the turn-on for him. Um, so, it's a, it's a, it's a sadistic thing. It's not just a sex thing. Um, if you do the math on, on the amount of years he was doing it, that adds up to a lot of people. A lot of people. And so, so it's hard to know exactly.

A lot of victims we're talking about.

And then in terms of the trafficking ring, or who wandered into the orbit and went off to a cabana on the island with an underage girl. Um, I don't think there's any way for us to know who the number of men. I, I know, I know the men that Virginia told me. And, and notably, that Virginia told the FBI repeatedly, that the Virginia told the Department of Justice, and she was not alone in in reporting all of these things over and over to anyone who would listen. What their names were, what they'd done to her. So, this is why there's a clamoring for the Epstein files to be released right now, because this, the names are there. The names are in the files. Because these brave women came forward repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly and tried to shine a light on this issue. And, you know, uh, uh, uh, and, uh, wait a second, everybody. Hold on. I think you froze for a second, Amy. Hold on, 2 seconds, everyone. Sorry about this. Amy, hi. You froze just for a sec. You're okay. I think your Wi-Fi froze for a sec, Amy. Here. Says her internet is unstable. Hi, everyone. Just stay to stay. Be patient for a second. Sorry, Amy. Your, your internet just went out a teeny bit. I don't know what's going on. I think your internet just went out a little bit, or it was unstable, the connection. Yep. It's okay. Right. Um, is it better now? Do you, um, not sure what to do there. I think you're okay. Is there another place in your house where the internet is a? I, I'm, I can hear you. Okay. All right. You were just freezing a bit, and maybe it'll come back. Uh, it says I have full bars, but I will attempt. Okay. Throughout my home. Okay. Uh, yeah, it'll probably come back, too. I think it was just shaky there for a moment, but, uh, you froze this one. Yeah. Uh, let's see. Shoot. That's okay. Don't worry. This is one of the things about Substack. It's like people are very forgiving and they know that. Let's see. I think that's better. Uh, Kathleen is saying you're good here. Uh, I wonder if it's mine. Can everyone see? Here we go. Amy, I think it's okay. Yeah. Uh, but she's still freezing a little bit, but I think you're, you're fine. We use you, you, huh? I'm, I'm seeing if it's us. Okay. You okay. You froze in Amy when you were talking about all the people and all the survivors had given these names to the FBI and the, the Department of Justice, and that's why there's such a clamoring for the Epstein files.

There's a clamoring for the Epstein files to be released because people are basically sick of it. They're sick of of learning and knowing and seeing in this instance, as well as many others, that wealthy, powerful people don't live by the same rules as the rest of us. And, and this is a particularly egregious case of that. Um, but, but beyond that, you know, the Department of Justice needs to do its job. Amen to that. Law enforcement needs to do its job. The, the, the burdens are always placed on these women to not just come forward bravely once or twice, or be interviewed as many times as law enforcement needs to talk to them, which they do, but then to repeat and repeat and repeat, to keep the spotlight on the issue. And they've done their job. I, and this book does its job. Even though I, I think I was in the middle of saying when we froze, um, you know, there are names in this book. There are also other references to men who she does not name. And she explains that in the end of the book, what those decisions were. And, you know, any victim that comes forward has to weigh the costs and the, and the, you know, the payoffs of of trying to hold their accusers, their abusers, to account. And the payoff, obviously, is that you get to tell people what they did to you and try to make the world a better place. But the costs, I mean, you immediately lose your privacy. That's a given. But in Virginia's case, she received a credible death threat. The FBI calls her up and says, "We have a credible death threat on your life. You need to take cover." And she and her family rent a camper van and they drive into the wilds of Australia and live there for 3 weeks and then realize, "We have three kids. They go to school. What are we going to just stay in the woods forever?" So, they have to just go back. They don't have any private security detail. Their house is broken into. She was, she was, you know, told either directly or indirectly by various men whose names she had named in depositions, which are public now. These names are public. You can read them, any of you. She was told, "Take our names out of your mouth." And either that means we'll hurt you, or it means we'll hurt your kids, or it means we'll keep you in court for the rest of your life, and we'll keep on asking you to repeat and repeat and repeat the most awful things that were ever done to another person over and over. So, buckle up for that. So, these women, Virginia among them, came forward bravely, and they gave their testimony, and their, I mean, there's a scene in the book where after Jeffrey Epstein dies, Judge Berman, I believe it is, holds a hearing and says, "I, well, we're no longer going to be able to convict this man, but I'm going to hold a hearing where all of you women, all you victims can come forward and talk about your experience." Very amazing thing that the judge did. He didn't have to do it. And they all go, and they all stand up in public court and they talk about what happened to them and why his death is such a tragedy because he needed to be held to account. And then afterwards, they are taken into a private room where Department of Justice officials thank them from the bottoms of their hearts about how much they have said and helped, and how much they need their help more. And Virginia says, "I know I went and talked to them, and I know several of my survivor sisters," that's what they all call each other, did so as well. So, where is that information? It's in the Epstein, what we're calling the Epstein files. It exists. As does, in all likelihood, whatever they took out of Jeffrey Epstein's townhouse in Manhattan when they picked him up at Teterboro Airport, which he was surprised by, and they blasted down the door with a battering ram of his Manhattan townhouse at that very moment. Unlike when they investigated him in Palm Beach in previous years, where he had clearly been warned, and there were wires sticking out of the wall, and there were the computers had been taken away. But, but there is reason to hope that they surprised him that time when they picked him up. And so, that stuff that's in that house, videotapes potentially, his trophy closet of pictures of young girls, that stuff is there, and potentially that means there are videotapes of men in those bedrooms, who he had cameras in all of them, who are abusing underage girls. That's how you get these guys.

You say that some of it is public. Some people, you know, you can have access to some of the testimony of these survivors. Um, where would one be able to find that?

The Google. The Google will tell you. There are four document dumps. They are public. They're easy to find. There are thousands of pages. I've read all of them. Some of them are repetitive, so get ready to have a cup of coffee with you, cuz it's going to take you a while to get through them. But, it's depositions of all kinds. It's, it's investigative reports. It's, and little by little, different pages of each deposition were made public in the, in the subsequent dumps. So, those names are out there. But, there are more names in these documents that the Justice Department has, correct?

I mean, I, obviously, I have, I, I'm speaking as an emissary of Virginia. I know what Virginia told them, or what she told me she told them. Um, I, I, I know other women bravely participated in that process as well. I know that from Jeffrey Berman, who was the US attorney in New York, wrote his own book. And he describes this meeting I'm describing where they thank, they thank these women in a private room for their help. So, we know it. We know that information has been shared. We know it exists. And so, the question is, remember, Donald Trump, former President Donald Trump, then candidate Donald Trump, hoping to be president again, campaigned on a plank of releasing the Epstein files. Why did he do that? Because it was very, very important to his base. But, it's not a partisan issue. It's not a Democrat-Republican issue. It's a human issue. It's, it's, do you care that some people get to behave abominably? Could be your daughter. And they don't pay the price for it. And some people pay the price. That's unfair.

And, can I ask, maybe a, I don't know if this is a dumb question or not, but I feel like you won't mind. Um, could, did, did the Biden administration have access to this material? And could it have been released before Donald Trump became president?

I mean, the, the short answer is yes, just only because of the dates of all of this. I mean, you know, Virginia first comes forward in 2011. I think she talks to the FBI soon after that. So, again, how many years ago is that? Uh, 14. Um, you know, so, so, and that armor had gone. But, they had gone. So, keep, keep going. Uh, there's a Wi-Fi router. So, you can go next to that. Do you have a Wi-Fi? Do you have a Wi-Fi router you can go a little closer to? Yes. This is not just a Trump administration. What's going on? That's okay. You're back. Sorry. Do you have a Wi-Fi router? Do you have a Wi-Fi router you can go a little closer to, perhaps? See me? Router? I do. Can you, can you just bring? You can go a little closer, that might, might be helpful. Sorry, everyone, bear with us. But, um, uh, what we were talking about was this started in 2011. Um, and why was this not made public even prior to the second Trump administration? Um, I'm at really nice notes from people. Yeah. I don't know why it's happening. I'm back. Yeah, you're back. And you were saying, you were saying this predates the second Trump administration.

It does, just because of the nature of the ongoing investigation. It was, it was going on. I, I mean, in Virginia's case, from 2011 on. So, she was talking to the FBI. Um, and so, those files exist.

Why didn't it come out sooner?

I don't know. I mean, in practical terms, investigative files are not usually just released to the public. I, I do understand that. Um, so, it's not like in every other instance we've seen every other investigative file, but this is the one they're holding back. That's not true. They tend to gather information, and then they decide to bring an indictment or not bring an indictment. That's how it works. Um, I think the reason there's a clamoring for this particular file, or files, or huge numbers of file cabinets, I don't know how much it is in terms of material, to be released, is that nothing has been done about it. And we know that crimes were committed. We know it. So, then that raises the question. Um, we want to see it because you're not making the right decisions based on what's in there. So, we want to see it. And I think that's what people are, are basically saying. People on both sides of the political spectrum, on all sides of the political spectrum, are saying, "Well, then show us."

Amy, um, I know that you've been asked repeatedly in interviews because you, Virginia did share with you some names. She decided, made a decision not to name names in her, in her book, although she mentions a, what I think was a violent former prime minister, I believe. Um, and of course, Jeffrey Epstein and, uh, Ghislaine, and also obviously her father and, uh, the, the family friend. Um, and, and I know you've been asked it in, in interviews, Amy, like, "Why don't you and Prince Andrew, thank you, Julia. Why, why don't you name the names?" And, uh, I know that I think we talked to Danny and his wife and said, uh, you know, you know some of these names. And, and talk about why you all are not going to be the people who, who share this information.

Well, in some ways, we are proxies for the victims themselves, you know. We, we have been told, her brothers have been told, I have been told the names of who hurt Virginia. Um, and it shouldn't be on the to put themselves who have have threatened not just litigation, but violence. Um, and the reason that I don't think that's a failing on our part is that the names are out there. The names are in the files. The question should be aimed at the Department of Justice and at law enforcement, or at Congress, that has subpoena power. You know, not at. I wrote an op-ed for the New York Times, I, I don't know how many days ago. That, it's a blur, maybe a week ago, saying, "Why are is the burden constantly placed on the weakest among us, the people who've been hurt, or their family members, or their ghostwriters, who would be vulnerable to these men if, if we name them? Why is the impetus or the burden being placed constantly on the weakest among us instead of the strongest among us, our law enforcement officials, who we theoretically have trust in to take care of us? And to, to be fair and to be thorough. I, I only know a piece of the puzzle. They know all of it." So, so I, I understand that. I don't mind the question. You know, people want to know. And, and if I'm coming out and saying, "Well, I know," because I, I'm a journalist, I can't write a book with a person telling me about various people and not interrogate who those people are. I, I couldn't just take her word for, "Well, there was some guy." We needed to know. I needed to know so that we could make this book as accurate and, and careful and nuanced as possible. But that doesn't then make it my responsibility to put myself and my family in danger. And I will also say Virginia's family was threatened. Not just her. And those people still are alive. Not just her brothers, but her three children. And they're in danger. If an emissary of Virginia, me, starts spouting off the names, they're in danger. Because they were, they by association, they were threatened. So, my decision has been to respect Virginia. To do, to give her something that she got too little of in life, which was respect. She made decisions about what names were going to be in and out of this book, and I respect those decisions. Um, and furthermore, this book was never intended to just be a list of names. It to be the Epstein client list. This book was intended to show you the arc of a woman's life who started off humble beginnings, had terrible things happen to her, you know, escaped from Epstein and Maxwell, which some girls failed to do, unfortunately for them, who, who created a family, who was able to, to rebuild herself enough to have an open heart and to, and to, and that to then care about the rest of us and, and advocate for us, for us, not just for her. For, for the world to be a better place. You know, this is an American hero. I've said that in repeated interviews, and I really believe it. And in, even though she died tragically, sadly, and awfully in April, it's an inspiring story because it's a story of somebody who stood up for what was right. To make, and, and we all, we all need to be doing that.

You know? We all need to be doing that. Men and women. Amy, do you think that you know, as you mentioned, Congress has the power to subpoena uh these files?

Uh Mike Johnson is refusing to uh swear in the new member of Congress from Arizona who could be the final vote that would require the release of these files. Um you know, do you I feel like perhaps Virginia's book and the reception and your book, I mean, with your help and the reception that it's gotten in the public, uh maybe the impetus for even more action. Do you sense that that might happen?

Well, I hope I hope it does, and it would mean so much to Virginia, you know, if if that were true. I mean, one of the reasons that she wanted to show very honestly about you know, how how trauma continued to ruin her life at times was that she wanted first of all other survivors to feel less alone, but she also wanted us to get angry. That's what it's going to take, you know, to to do away with statutes of limitations that that prevent victims of childhood sexual abuse from confronting their accusers in court because they they couldn't do it until they were 40 years old, and that's the average. They found there studies that show people don't have the the the wherewithal emotionally or any other way to confront their abusers until they grow up, but the statutes of limitations have already expired, so they can't. She had many things she wanted to do in her future that were about making this world a better place. And if the book can help do that, her book, her life, her testimony, it would mean everything to her. And I hope I hope that's why I'm so grateful to you, Katie, for for shining a light on this.

You know, this isn't it this is this is about our culture. This is about misogyny. This is about fetishization of young girls. This is about class. This is about wealthy people living by a different set of rules. And and these things have gone on for a long time, and this is not just about Epstein and Maxwell, these two weird, you know, outliers. This isn't this is they aren't any different. They're just a terrible example, you know.

>> I think in fact, didn't it one of the lines in the book is about the fact that they are not outliers, right?

Absolutely. I think it's a mistake to think that they are. And and and if and if they I I I just I mean, we haven't really talked about the pardoning of it all, but the idea that anyone in this administration is considering putting a pardon forward for Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted sex offender, a convicted trafficker. And in this book you see she wasn't just the receptionist keeping the datebook. She was sexually >> participant.

Absolutely. She was she was sexually abusing girls and young women herself. She was forcing them to sexually service her. She was hurting them during sex. There's a scene that just eat your Wheaties before you read it. It's it's tough. She hurts Virginia using some sort of sex toy, if that's the right word for it, because she's angry at her. This is a vile sex offender. And if if that woman is let out of the minimum security prison that she is now for some reason been moved into, I mean, all bets are off at that point. Like that that that sends the message loud and clear. We just don't care. We don't care that you're upset about it. We don't care that you don't like it that that rich people get to hurt poor people willy-nilly. We don't care. We're just going to do it. That's the message that's going to send. So I mean, we'll see. We'll see what decisions are made. But again, if this book can try to somehow refocus the narrative on the accurate narrative about Ghislaine Maxwell. She was not a victim of Epstein. She She may have had terrible things happen to her in her life previously, and for that I feel sorry for her, but she took it out on others. And they were the youngest and most vulnerable among us.

Amy, I I know we have to wrap soon, but you know, I think about you, obviously, and I think you said as much that you loved Virginia, and you worked with her for four four years, and she shared so many, you know, obviously intimate details and painful excruciatingly painful details about her life. And then I'm sure you learn in April that that she she takes her life, and I can I can imagine, honestly, how crushing that was for you as someone who had gotten to know Virginia perhaps better than anyone.

Oh, it was devastating. You know, she'd always been so resilient before that. Even in the case of awful awful attacks, not just the abuse in her early life, but the way she was treated when she came forward by horrible horrible men. Um and yeah, it's it's it's devastating. I think I showed you earlier, I'm wearing this ring. This will be weird on the camera. >> everyone cuz that was before everyone joined us. >> Okay, so I was in Virginia bought me this ring for 50 cents at a thrift store in Perth, Australia when I was there in October. Um she often wanted she was very generous. She often wanted to buy me things. I wouldn't let her, but I it's it's made out of a zipper. It's it's a very strange piece of jewelry, but I love it, and I've worn it in every interview. Um I did love her. She was easy to love. Um she was open-hearted. She was perhaps naive in her hopes that we could make this world a better place. Well, we need more of us to try the way she tried. Um and it has been exhausting, but an honor to try to speak up on her behalf. I wish she was sitting here with us all right now and that I was sitting somewhere nearby holding her hand. That was going to be my role. Um but if there's anything that I can do for her to promote her legacy, to defend her, to protect her against attacks, and they are coming in, believe me, I'm getting them in my email inbox. The ugliness is out there, ladies and gentlemen. It is out there, and it's coming my way now. And I I I am I'm in this sad, but fierce place. I I will not let anyone tear her down. And if I can stand up and do anything to to cement the understanding of who this woman was, a woman in full, as I said before, a woman who was just an average person like you and me, and did something for us. That's that's who she was.

Well, I think you're doing a beautiful job honestly, Amy. Uh um you're so eloquent and so compassionate and I think probably Virginia made a very good choice collaborating with you. I I wanted to just end this uh um to read a little bit of Virginia's introduction in her words. Uh she writes She wrote a lot of this, right? Did you Did you help with the writing or I mean, she did a beautiful job. And if you worked together, you both did a beautiful job.

So, she wrote, "Trauma is such a cunning enemy. Those of us who have survived its terrors often marvel at how quickly it can recede, at least at first. Once you get to safety, your visible wounds, your cuts, your bruises heal and fade. Your psyche, too, revives like a drowning man who pulled from the depths somehow spits up dark water and opens his eyes. But recovering victims like me know too well how trauma lurks in the shadows, always there. No matter how many years go by or how many therapists you see, it can rise unbidden, seemingly out of nowhere. A song on the radio may summon it or the scent of a stranger's cologne."

She writes in another part. "I know about monsters. As a child, I suffered nearly every kind of abuse. Incest, parental neglect, severe corporal punishment, molestation, rape. As a teen, I had been sexually trafficked by another pedophile even before I met Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. But these two doubled down on my suffering. In my years with them, they let me out to scores of wealthy, powerful people. I was habitually used and humiliated and in some instances choked, beaten, and bloodied. I believed that I might die a sex slave. Then after my 19th birthday, I met someone who seemed to give a damn about me. I took a chance and in 2002, I escaped. And sadly, that person ended up kind of continuing this terrible cycle."

And then I just want to end by what she said when you talked about how she sort of talks to the reader. "I know this is a lot to take in. The violence, the neglect, the bad decisions, the self-harm. Imagine if a trauma reel like this played in your head all the time as it does in mine. And not just on the pages of a book you can put down if you need to, just for a moment to steady your nerves. But please don't stop reading. I know exactly how to help you get through these tough parts just as I helped myself by focusing on the present."

Wow, it is so powerful, Amy. Thank you. Thank you for for spending this time with us. I hope that as painful and difficult and harrowing as it may be, that everyone honors Virginia and honestly in a way you too, Amy, who lived through this with her uh by buying her book, by reading her book, by remembering her story, and by remembering all these sister survivors or survivor sisters as she calls them. Um And and and make sure that these people know that their stories are are worthy, right?

Yeah, I mean, that's the hope. I got a great email from a stranger, uh Facebook email from a a gentleman who says, "Let's have a national book club. Let's all read it together." That's one way to get through it all together. Let's read it together. Let's talk about it. I love that idea. I mean, not for book sales, but but you take it out of the library if you need to. You don't have to buy the book. But these are issues that that need attention. And if if she can can help us focus that attention where it needs to be, then that's a huge victory. And it would mean a lot to her, I know. And it means a lot to me that people like you, Katie, are are helping us spread that word.

Well, again, Amy, thank you so so much. And for everybody who joined this conversation, thank you. Um you know, it's really I can't think of a of a more important discussion to have finally for so many people. So, um Amy, I hope we'll get to meet in person one day. I would love that. You know I would. Me too. Anyway, thanks again, everyone. And um I think we obviously uh everyone knows "Nobody's Girl" is the name of the book. Um And it's Virginia Giuffre's memoir. Uh and I I really hope that you all buy it and read it and support her. So, thanks again, Amy. Thank you, Katie. I appreciate it. >> Bye, everyone. Bye.