Buckingham Palace and Prince Andrew may have thought that they’d put this Jeffrey Epstein business behind them. Even after Andrew was seen with Epstein following his jail sentence on “charges of solicitation of prostitution and procurement of minors for prostitution”, he managed to not have to account for his connection to Epstein for almost a decade. Until a few weeks ago when Epstein was arrested and subsequently “died by suicide” in federal detention. Now lawyers for Epstein’s victims are urging Andrew to come forward with what he knows. Per The Guardian:
Representatives of women including Virginia Giuffre, who was pictured with Andrew in a now notorious photograph and alleges she was made to have sex with him, urged the prince to help them secure justice for the women Epstein abused.
“I look forward to coordinating a formal deposition where he will be given the opportunity to tell us everything he knows,” Brad Edwards, a lawyer for Giuffre, told the Guardian on Monday. “We would like to do this as soon as possible, at his convenience, and again we are very appreciative of his willingness to help.”
“Coordinating a formal deposition”? They want to depose the Duke of York, the second son of the Queen of England, eighth in line to the throne, in a case against a pedophile accused of raping dozens of women and forcing them to have sex with rich powerful men, including world and business leaders, and royalty. They are trying to depose a prince of England, a f-cking PRINCE! They mean to put him in a conference room, turn on the audio and video recorders, and ask him questions like:
Did your friends Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell introduce you to girls and offer you the opportunity to have sex with them?
Did you know that your friend Jeffrey Epstein was running a sex ring with minors?
What were you doing at Epstein’s home that day in December 2010, after he was released from prison, and registered as a sex offender, peeping your head out of his front door as a parade of girls was seen coming and going from the residence?
Didn’t you think it was weird that your friend was convicted for creeping on minors and still continued to be surrounded by very young-looking females?
Did that bother you? Did you ever ask him about it? Did you ever see him abusing girls?
Did you know that these girls claim that they were forced to be available for sex to all these powerful men?
Were you one of those men?
Please look at this photograph of Virginia Giuffre who claims you are standing beside her with your arm around her. Is this you? Or is this your secret doppelganger? Did you know how old she was? Why were you there? What contact did you have with her? She says you had sex. Did you have sex? Did you, the son of the Queen of England, have sex with a then 17 year old girl procured for you by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell? If not, why would she say you did? Can you explain that?
How is this not the BIGGEST STORY?!?
How is the fact that lawyers are trying to depose Prince Andrew not THE royal story of the moment?
But here’s the cover of the Daily Mail today, August 20, 2019.
As you can see, Prince Andrew’s scandal shares equal space with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s private jet situation. As you know, Elton John and Ellen DeGeneres and a few other celebrities have spoken out in support of the Sussexes and the way they’re being treated by the British tabloids.
Here’s the thing – there should be a conversation about royal travel and climate change and hypocrisy, that’s a worthwhile conversation to have … in context. Prince Charles has been a climate crusader for decades, the first British royal to take up the cause, way back when people laughed at him. He’s flown private. Prince William, who has also urged climate change awareness (he was in Davos in January of this year urging world leaders to do more for the environment just like Prince Harry was at the Google Summit on climate change a couple of weeks ago), flies private all the time, most recently to Mustique, with Kate and the children. Any conversation about climate change and the royal hypocrisy, then, should involve all of them, if this is actually what the UK tabloids are all about, if the environment is really their concern. Is it though? Or is it that they want to specifically focus on Harry and Meghan because they’re still mad at Harry and Meghan for not giving them enough access to their baby when he was born and all kinds of other grudges?
And on top of that, it’s what I wrote about yesterday: the issue of equivalency, which is perfectly illustrated by today’s cover of the Daily Mail. Sure, let’s talk about both stories. But putting both stories side by side suggests that the outrage over both should be the same. That Harry and Meghan flying private on holiday is the same level of egregiousness as Prince Andrew hanging out at the home of a pedophile rapist and not ever explaining whatever the f-ck he was doing spending time with that guy AFTER he was exposed to be a sex offender.
They are not the same. And putting them next to each other on the front page, equating these two stories, is a reflection of the UK media’s attitude towards the Sussexes, Meghan in particular – an attitude they continue to deny, but how can you deny what’s going on here on the cover?