As expected, the unsealed documents that were released last week from the defamation suit between Ghislaine Maxwell and Virginia Roberts Giuffre have caused even more trouble for Prince Andrew and the other rich and powerful men allegedly connected to Prince Andrew’s friend, the dead rapist pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Andrew is mentioned several times in the 600 pages that are now public, along with Alan Dershowitz and Bill Clinton, as Virginia claims she was made to service him sexually at the behest of Epstein and Maxwell. According to the file though, Prince Andrew and Alan Dershowitz also allegedly lobbied the US government to give Epstein a better plea deal. Which means that, if this is true, the prince took advantage of his position as a then-senior member of the British royal family, as in the Queen’s favoured second son, to help out his friend who was exploiting, raping, and sex trafficking girls and women. Sh-tty men coming through for sh-tty men = HISTORY.
Friends of Prince Andrew are, as usual, emphatically denying the claims. But it’s not like Andrew, independent of the Epstein association, didn’t already have a sketchy reputation. Back when he was UK trade envoy, his career was “plagued with controversy”. In 2011, the BBC reported that:
“Questions have been raised over the prince's suitability by such issues as lunching at Buckingham Palace with a "notorious" member of the former Tunisian regime, to taking a holiday with a Libyan gun smuggler, to claims he used an official trip to try to find a buyer for his home in the UK.”
None of that means he participated in the Epstein rape and sex trafficking ring, but it does establish that he had a habit of throwing his weight around and pulling his royal card for personal gain, to seek favours, and, perhaps, to pay them back?
As noted in the unsealed documents, Virginia Giuffre reveals what she says Epstein once told her about Bill Clinton:
“She went on to detail a visit from former President Bill Clinton, who she said stayed at Epstein’s private residence on Little Saint James island where he visited with Maxwell, Epstein, and “two young girls” present.
She said she remembered wondering why Clinton was on the island. "I remember asking Jeffrey what's Bill Clinton doing here kind of thing, and he laughed it off and said, well he owes me a favour," Giuffre told her attorneys in 2011. "He never told me what favours they were. I never knew. I didn't know if he was serious. It was just a joke.”
How many people owed Jeffrey Epstein favours? What did he have on all these people? It could be as simple as the fact that he made them a LOT of (dirty) money. Or it could be as dirty as whatever it was that he had of them on video, if you believe that he was constantly recording the activities of his guests at his various properties around the world.
But these unsealed documents aren’t Prince Andrew’s only problem, on a list of problems that keeps growing. You’ll recall, during his interview with Emily Maitlis for BBC Newsnight, Andrew insisted that Virginia Giuffre was lying about him going to a nightclub in London with her – and being one of the high profile men who enjoyed the forced labour of Epstein’s sex slaves – because the night in question, he went for pizza in Woking. The pizza defence, along with the fat finger and the defective sweat gland defence, is now being challenged.
Shukri Walker has come forward to tell The Sun that she was at the club that night and saw Prince Andrew with a girl. Per Page Six, “Walker said she was positive she saw Andrew busting moves with Giuffre because she apologized to him after standing on his foot”. After seeing Andrew’s interview on BBC Newsnight, Walker reached out to attorney Lisa Bloom who is representing a number of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims:
“Bloom said that all Walker “wanted was to get her story to the FBI as a witness to help Virginia. So she wasn’t seeking any money from anyone. She wasn’t looking to bring a lawsuit,” according to The Sun.
“But the agency decided it did not need the woman’s testimony,” Bloom said.
“They said, ‘We have the story, thank you. And we don’t need to bother her,’” Bloom added.”
Buckingham Palace and Prince Andrew have repeatedly argued that Virginia Giuffre is a liar and that none of what she’s described about her encounters with him is true. But she has a photograph, which he has tried, unsuccessfully, to discredit. She’s been deposed, and during her depositions and repeated interviews with authorities, she’s been able to provide or corroborate details from other witnesses and victims. Prince Andrew, meanwhile, has bungled and fumbled his story multiple times, including on camera, with inconsistent recollections and has yet to cooperate with investigators, even though he declared that he was willing to do so.
And still, he continues to enjoy the formidable protection of the British royal institution, members of which are only too happy to sell out someone for wanting to try on a tiara but will rally around the dude who mishandled international trade deals, hung out with the most corrupt and unsavoury international power players, and has been implicated in a billionaire’s sex trafficking ring for over a decade. Somehow they’re still considered the moral authority.
