Tale of two nations: Andrew’s UK arrest highlights US passivity on Epstein files | UK news
The contrast couldn’t be sharper. At around 8am on Thursday, British police raided the Sandringham royal estate to arrest former prince Andrew following allegations he shared confidential material with former US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. This was a seismic shock for the monarchy.
A week ago, Pam Bondi, the top U.S. law enforcement official, was asked how many of Epstein’s associates her department had charged and whether she would give state prosecutors general access to evidence to build more cases. He refused to answer.
As for Donald Trump, whose name appears thousands of times in the Epstein files, albeit without any explicit accusation, Bondi insisted he was “the greatest president in American history” and warned members of Congress not to mention the soaring stock market instead.
This is the story of two nations. In one of them, the order was shaken to its core by the Epstein files, with a member of the royal family arrested for the first time in nearly 400 years and a prime minister struggling to survive. In the other, the “Epstein class,” as Senator Jon Ossoff called it, faced public opposition but little in the way of a legal or political showdown with the U.S. president, seemingly escaping with impunity once again.
“Other countries, like the British, may hold their leaders and high-profile individuals accountable, but here in the United States we somehow continue to hide the facts,” says Olivia Troye, a former national security official. “We have a Department of Justice that’s complicit in all of this, and we can’t hold people accountable in the United States. What message does that send to the world?”
Only one person has been arrested or convicted in the United States in connection with Epstein’s activities. His ex-girlfriend and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2021 of supplying underage girls to the wealthy financier, who died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
There were hopes that the long-awaited release of the Epstein files would bring greater justice for the survivors of his abuse. And they made deeply disturbing reading for the Epstein class, a global network of powerful politicians, corporate executives, academics and celebrities.
Many prominent Americans resigned from their high-profile positions after files revealed they continued their relationships with Epstein after he was convicted of sex crimes in 2008. Former treasury secretary Larry Summers left the board of the OpenAI foundation, billionaire Thomas Pritzker stepped down as executive chairman of Hyatt hotels, and attorney Kathryn Ruemmler announced her departure from Goldman Sachs.
The material also damaged the reputation of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who canceled a speech at an AI summit in India on Thursday; Casey Wasserman, the top US official overseeing the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles; wellness influencer Peter Attia; and former president Bill Clinton, who along with his wife Hillary will testify before a congressional panel next week.
But no one other than Maxwell faced legal consequences. In fact, it seems unlikely that another investigation will be opened. Assistant Attorney General Todd Blanche said: he told CNN: “In July, the Department of Justice said we had reviewed the Epstein files and found nothing here that would allow us to prosecute anyone. And because of what we saw and what we revealed from the Epstein files, we stand by.”
This explanation did not satisfy some members of Congress, who accused Bondi’s justice department of dragging its feet.
Sen. Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona, placed the blame for the lack of action in the United States squarely on Trump, who is a close friend of Epstein. He shared on
Trump fought for months to prevent the release of the Epstein files but eventually signed legislation passed by Congress requiring their release. The 79-year-old Republican’s name has been repeatedly mentioned in the files, but he has not been accused of any false accusations.
On Thursday, Trump was asked whether any of Epstein’s employees in the United States would be “handcuffed and arrested.” While Trump called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest “a very sad thing,” he dodged the question by reiterating his claim that he was personally “completely exonerated.”
Critics say Trump’s passivity is seriously relieved by the extraordinary efforts of Britain and other countries to establish accountability.
Political commentator and former congressional aide Kurt Bardella says: “You would think that the entire global community would support the idea that trafficking in underage women and trading in secrets and money is not a good thing. It seems like everyone except the United States has gotten the memo.”
“While this goes on and those at the highest levels of power in America are not held accountable, we have zero moral authority to tell any country in this world what it should or shouldn’t do. We can’t tell Iran what it should do. We can’t tell the Middle East what peace should look like. We can’t police anyone because we’re not willing to police ourselves.”
The divide between Britain and the US does not end in the courtroom. British prime minister Keir Starmer was forced to answer questions about his decision after newspapers revealed that Peter Mandelson, whom he appointed as ambassador to the United States, had a more extensive and closer relationship with Epstein than previously disclosed. Mandelson was fired last September and is currently under police investigation following allegations that he leaked government materials to Epstein.
Compare and contrast US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick. Lutnick claimed he swore he would never “be in the same room” as Epstein after a 2005 incident in which the financier showed Lutnick a massage table at his townhouse and made a sexually explicit comment. But emails show Lutnick visited Epstein’s private island for lunch in 2012 and invited him to a fundraiser in 2015. “We had lunch on the island for an hour — that’s true —,” Lutnick admitted to Congress earlier this month.
He was caught in a lie, and Democrats demanded his resignation. In Britain and many other countries around the world, this outcome was inevitable. But Trump has no intention of handing such a victory to his enemies.
Troye, Mike Pence’s former homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, commented: “Former Prince Andrew is being taken to a police station, but we have people who remain in their positions at the cabinet level and there doesn’t seem to be any accountability there. That’s how deep the rot goes.”
“These people continued to lie over and over again along the way, and then new evidence came out and the American people can see for themselves that these people were lying about what was going on here. They continued to communicate with this person even though they knew he was a convicted pedophile.”
Trump himself is on much safer ground than Starmer, who was elected precisely for his milquetoast manner and is seen as an antidote to the old Tory years; Any sign of scandal destroys this core identity. Trump, by contrast, has delved into ethical depths to a numbing effect; his presence in the files had been long awaited and came as little shock.
But there could still be a showdown. His right-wing base has long been obsessed with the Epstein legend and the belief that the financier oversaw a sex trafficking ring aimed at the world’s elite. Some in this base are angry at how the release of the files was mishandled. They are unlikely to vote against Trump’s party in the November midterm elections, but they may not vote at all.
Mountbatten-Windsdor, who denied any wrongdoing, was held accountable by the long arm of the law. Trump and his allies may again face a different kind of justice at the ballot box.
Rick Wilson, a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, says the President “is facing a political disaster” and that Democrats are on track to take control of the House of Representatives and perhaps even the Senate. “Then subpoenas will be issued, lawyers will be hired, and cameras and audio cables will be installed in House committee rooms.
“The intensity of the investigations into the Epstein cover-up, fixes, and omissions will surpass any previous investigation in the history of the United States and bring this matter completely into the open. Any isolation that everyone thought they had will be gone.”
