Former ABC producer Ashley Bianco denied that she leaked a video of anchor Amy Robach complaining that the network spiked her Jeffrey Epstein scoop in a shocking clip that has been circulating for a week.
In a tearful interview with Megyn Kelly on Friday, Bianco flatly denied that she was responsible for leaking the clip to Project Veritas, which shared the footage across social media this week. Kelly questioned whether Bianco was producing from the control room when Robach ranted about the loss of her Epstein scoop. Bianco denied the notion that Robach was unaware that her rant was being heard by other people.
“I was watching the comments while I was at my desk,” the former producer said. “I went to my manager and said, ‘Do you see what she’s saying? Does she know she’s on a hot mic?'”
Bianco then claimed she was told that Robach knew her remarks could be heard, not only by employees in the studio but by anyone with access to the broadcast, saying, “The assistant said to us that Amy knew she was on a mic and that she knew she was being broadcast to all the affiliates.”
When asked whether Bianco realized the weight of what she was hearing, the 25-year-old responded, “Everyone in the office was freaked out by what she was saying.”
Robach’s remarks from the video in question chided ABC for not allowing her to broadcast about the accusations against accused sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein three years prior when she had the scoop.
“It was unbelievable what we had. Clinton, we had everything,” she said. “I tried for three years to get it on to no avail. And now it’s all coming out, and it’s like these new revelations, and I freaking had all of it.”
Facing multiple charges of trafficking, rape, and other sexual offenses, Epstein was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell in August of an apparent suicide. ABC claimed after the leak of Robach’s complaint that they didn’t feel the story had enough corroboration to air.
“At the time, not all of our reporting met our standards to air, but we have never stopped investigating the story,” the network said in a statement. “Ever since we’ve had a team on this investigation and substantial resources dedicated to it. That work has led to a two-hour documentary and 6-part podcast that will air in the new year.”
In the interview with Kelly, Bianco denied sharing the clip with anyone and claimed her job as a producer was primarily to create reels for on-air talent and share “funny” clips with other employees. “It was just for office gossip,” she said of clipping the segment.
She asserted that she has never been acquainted with Project Veritas or its founder James O’Keefe, saying, “I’d never even heard of Project Veritas.”
O’Keefe also denies that Bianco was responsible for leaking the footage. When Kelly pressed Bianco to guess who might be responsible for giving the tape to O’Keefe, she said that it could have been anyone. “Everyone saw it,” she said.
Bianco was terminated from a new job as a producer at CBS after only four days when ABC identified her as the leaker of their troubling footage to the competing network.
“I begged, I pleaded. I didn’t know what I had done wrong, and I just I wasn’t even given the professional courtesy to defend myself” Bianco said of losing her new job. “I didn’t know what I had been accused of. It was humiliating. It was devastating.”
A spokesperson for CBS News told the Washington Examiner the network is “declining to comment” on Bianco’s firing.
