Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has been arrested and charged with misconduct in public office. On his birthday. His homes in Norfolk and Windsor are being searched by police.
His arrest relates to emails that cropped up in the Epstein files. Andrew knew Epstein and was a regular correspondent. Andrew was also photographed alongside Ghislaine Maxwell and also Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s sex trafficking victims.
In 2022, Andrew reached an out-of-court settlement with Virginia Guiffre that involved him paying her an undisclosed sum. It is notable that in 2022 Andrew also sold his chalet in Verbier, for which he got £19 million. Andrew has denied all wrongdoing and so far has not been charged with any crime.
It is a difficult, rather grim time to be alive. The economy is stagnant, the war in Ukraine grinds on, society is becoming more unequal and more politically polarised – and the weather is just bloody terrible.
But there is one tiny glimmer of light – a diamond in the ash: at least, here in the UK, there is some accountability. It doesn’t matter whether you are a senior royal, or whether you are Peter Mandelson, in Britain, if you transgress, or even if you are suspected of legal transgression, you are still going to get hauled over the coals. Thank god.
It is going to be interesting to watch how Andrew’s arrest is handled by the US media, where the Epstein scandal, and everything connected with it, now sits at the very heart of the Trumpist political cyclone.
The Trump-supporting media has done everything it can to play down the fact that Trump knew Epstein, was close to him for years, partied with him and is mentioned in the Epstein files more times than Harry Potter in the Harry Potter series.
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Trump has also done everything he can to assure the US electorate that there is nothing to see here, recently telling reporters: “I have nothing to hide. I have been exonerated. I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. I have been totally exonerated on Epstein.”
Which is not true.
Today’s arrest will be profoundly unsettling for Trump. The Epstein scandal will be back in global headlines, which is precisely where he doesn’t want it, as it will lend weight to Trump’s critics, among them Marjorie Taylor Greene (read our profile of her political transformation here) who are stirring up trouble within the president’s own support base.
The focus of that discontent within MAGA is the Epstein scandal, which Greene and others are convinced is essentially a massive cover-up overseen by Trump.
And if the full significance of Andrew’s arrest somehow manages to pierce Trump’s fading mind, then he may find himself confronting an even darker realisation – that if the king of England’s brother can be arrested, then you can arrest anyone. Perhaps even a former president.
There is still accountability for powerful individuals here in Britain. But – at present – there is no comparable process of accountability at work in the US. Sure – Trump, and all the other powerful, rich sociopaths who gathered around Epstein, who attended his foul parties and sent him crawling emails asking for favours, have suffered a hit to their reputations. As has been pointed out in these pages, a rich man’s reputation is the only thing he cannot control.
But that’s not enough. Epstein committed horrific crimes. He had accomplices. They need to be held accountable. As the king himself said, on learning of his brother’s arrest: “Let me state clearly: the law must take its course.”
America, look over here – this is what accountability looks like.
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