Russell Myers - Andrew may think he has 'more to give' but public won't forget
Authorities in the United States had vowed to pursue Epstein's inner circle, as well as those who aided and abetted his tawdry web of abuse, lies and blackmail that destroyed the lives of women he trafficked around the world.
This latest development will no doubt be welcomed by the Duke of York, who notoriously cemented his own exile from the royal family after failing to acknowledge or apologise to Epstein's victims during his car crash interview on BBC Newsnight.
The pampered Prince's extraordinary attitude, as well as his half baked excuses for his relationship with Epstein, remains one of the most shocking moments in recent royal history.
Such is his own lofty opinion of himself, Andrew may even be tempted to fall back on the misguided view that his vehement denials of allegations of sexual assault, as well as his belief that he has "much more to give", may now finally forge him a path to redemption.
But the public - and indeed the royal family, the public and those organisations he was once associated with - will not forget.
Nor will the many victims of Epstein who have consistently been denied justice on an industrial scale. The puppet master behind the scandal that rocked the institution took his own life rather than face up to his crimes, leaving his sick mistress Ghislaine Maxwell to rot alone in a maximum security jail for the next 20 years.
Dozens of their victims, many who have bravely spoken up in the pursuit of answers and justice, remain scarred by their experiences. Once again they are left to question how the current situation has unfolded.
Andrew's vehement denials that he sexually assaulted Virginia Giuffre - one of Epstein's victims who tragically took her own life earlier this year after years of campaigning - will also hold little weight in the court of public opinion.
Whether he was shepherded into making his out of court settlement for £12million to escape the further shame and scandal of a civil court case will do nothing to resurrect his reputation that lies in tatters.
The late Queen Elizabeth II - as well as King Charles and Prince William - all insisted there would be no way back for Andrew, instead imploring him to disappear quietly from public view.
Sadly, as we often see with him riding horses around the Windsor estate or popping up at any family function of note, the notion seems to have escaped the Duke's interest. Until recently he still sought to cash in on his royal connections by offloading his Dragon's Den style idea 'Pitch at Palace' to wealthy investors looking for a scalp, as well as seeking ways to boost his profile in the Middle East.
Whether the Duke takes the advice of his family or listens to the public outcry as he seeks his redemption remains to be seen.
Be first to get the biggest royal bombshells and exclusives to your phone by joining our .
We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice.
Or sign up to the to get all the biggest royal news and exclusive pictures, straight to your inbox.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Epstein accuser claims she met Trump in disgraced financier's office in ‘troubling encounter'
One of Jeffrey Epstein's accusers claimed she met Donald Trump in the convicted pedophile 's New York office in what was described as a 'troubling encounter,' according to a report. Artist Maria Farmer said she urged the FBI to look into people in the disgraced financier's social circle, including the president, after the alleged encounter in the 90s, she told The New York Times. Farmer and her younger sister Annie, who testified at Ghislaine Maxwell's 2021 sex trafficking trial, have spoken publicly about their ordeal with Epstein before. But her account now sheds light on how the Epstein files could contain material that is 'embarrassing or politically problematic' to the president, the Times reports. Farmer's account is among 'the clearest indications yet' of how Trump may appear in the Epstein files, the Times notes, though the White House disputed the alleged encounter. 'The president was never in [Epstein's] office,' said White House communications director Steven Cheung. 'The fact is that the president kicked him out of his club for being a creep.' It follows a turbulent few weeks for the Trump administration after MAGA outrage over the Epstein files boiled over last week. Despite campaigning on a promise to release the files, Trump's Justice Department announced in July that no further evidence in the case would be released, unleashing turmoil among the president's MAGA supporter base. The president last week agreed to release select grand jury testimony of the case, which experts say is unlikely to produce much, if anything, to satisfy the public's appetite for new information about Epstein's crimes. Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail awaiting a sex trafficking trial in August 2019. Farmer was in her mid-twenties when she claimed she met Trump in 1995, shortly after Epstein hired her to do artwork. One night, she received an unexpected call from Epstein, who requested she come by his offices in Manhattan. According to Farmer's account to the Times, Trump was there and 'started to hover over her.' Farmer said that 'she recalled feeling scared as Mr. Trump stared at her bare legs,' the newspaper reported. 'Then Mr. Epstein entered the room, and she recalled him saying to Mr. Trump: 'No, no. She's not here for you.'' Epstein and Trump then left the room, according to Farmer, and she claimed she heard Trump comment that he thought she was 16 years old. The White House disputed Farmer's account. After the encounter, Farmer said she had no other 'alarming' interactions with Trump, nor did she witness him engage in inappropriate conduct with any other girls or women. Farmer filed a lawsuit at the end of May alleging that the federal government failed to protect her and other victims of the convicted pedophile and his madam, Ghislaine Maxwell. Farmer told the Times that she has long wondered how her complaints about Epstein between 1996 and 2006 were handled by law enforcement agencies. She told the newspaper that she raised Trump's name with authorities on two occasions because of the alleged encounter and 'because he seemed so close' to Epstein. Trump has never been accused of any wrongdoing in the Epstein case. Farmer, who did not testify at Maxwell's trial, was sexually assaulted by Epstein and his madam at his Ohio estate in 1996. Farmer later learned that her younger sister Annie, then 16, was molested by Maxwell and Epstein at his New Mexico ranch that same year. When Farmer discovered her sister had also been assaulted by Epstein and Maxwell, she reported the sex offender to the FBI. 'There is certainly more to know,' Annie Farmer told The Independent in an interview last year. 'I don't know whether we will ever learn more about that but I don't think we know everything.' The president has sought to distance himself from the sex offender, with whom he had a friendship from the late 80s until the early 2000s. Last week, the Wall Street Journal published the text of a note that was allegedly penned by Trump to Epstein as part of a 50th birthday card. The note itself was framed with the silhouette of a naked woman, with the contents alluding to a 'secret' that Trump wrote the two men shared.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
The British editor who revealed Trump's Epstein letter
In the days before her newspaper published details of a bawdy birthday card Donald Trump allegedly wrote to Jeffrey Epstein, Emma Tucker's phone rang. Ms Tucker, the British editor of The Wall Street Journal, picked up and soon found herself talking directly to an irate US president. The story of the birthday card was 'fake', he told her, before threatening to sue if she did not back down. His efforts were in vain. On Thursday night, the newspaper published details of a message said to be signed off with a drawing of a nude woman. Mr Trump had used his signature to represent pubic hair, it is alleged. The report was certainly salacious; it sparked further questions about Mr Trump's relationship with the paedophile financier. It helped fan the flames of arguably the biggest crisis of Mr Trump's presidency so far, the growing demand for his administration to release the full so-called Epstein files. But it also brought Mr Trump into open conflict with one of the world's most powerful media moguls, the Wall Street Journal owner Rupert Murdoch. The call between Ms Tucker and Mr Trump was tense, The Telegraph understands. After the story was published, Mr Trump fired off a lengthy denial on Truth Social, his own media platform. The 79-year-old accused Ms Tucker of running a 'false, malicious, and defamatory story' and filed a $10bn lawsuit against the WSJ, naming Mr Murdoch and the reporters who wrote the story as defendants. Holding her nerve has earned Ms Tucker the wrath of the US president and many of his loyal followers. But the Epstein story is the type of reporting Ms Tucker made a name for on Fleet Street – and now the US – those close to her say. For months, Mr Trump has been angered by the WSJ's coverage of his policies as the newspaper has continued to refuse to shy away from criticising his policies. While NewsCorp's media outlets, the New York Post and Fox News, often portray the president in a positive light, the WSJ has not attempted to curry favour with the White House. Media executives such as Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos have appeared to try and appease the US president, but the WSJ has stood out for critical pieces, at times skewering his policies. In May, when a reporter from the newspaper attempted to ask Mr Trump a question on Air Force One, he denounced the paper as 'rotten' and as having 'truly gone to hell'. However, the WSJ has maintained its influence. Last month, JD Vance, the vice-president, travelled to Mr Murdoch's Montana ranch to speak to the media mogul, his son Lachlan and other Fox News executives. Ms Tucker, 58, was selected by Mr Murdoch as the newspaper's first female editor-in-chief, replacing Matt Murray in February 2023 in a bid to shake up the publication. Born in London in 1966, she grew up in Lewes, Sussex, before going to study Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at University College, Oxford, where she edited the university magazine Isis. After joining the graduate trainee programme at the Financial Times, where she met her close friend Rachel Johnson, Boris Johnson's sister, she went on to work in the newspaper's Berlin and Brussels bureaus. In 2020, she became the first female editor of The Sunday Times in more than a century. Ex-colleagues describe her as tenacious. Asked about the run-in with Mr Trump, John Witherow, the former editor of The Times, told The Telegraph of his former deputy: 'I know she's tough.' Within weeks of arriving at the WSJ, Ms Tucker demonstrated her determination to back her reporters in the campaign to release WSJ journalist Evan Gershkovich, who had been detained in Russia. But while she received praise for her campaign for Mr Gershkovich's release, her arrival was not welcomed by everyone. Many staff were abhorred by job cuts, restructuring and a push to digital-first to attempt to bring an edginess back to the publication. Last year, more than 100 journalists staged a protest against the changes, covering the walls of her office in Post-it notes with comments such as 'the cuts are killing morale'. Ms Tucker told Vanity Fair that while the cuts 'may look callous, it's so that we get it right, so I don't have to do it over again.' She has also come under fire for coverage from both sides of the political aisle. The WSJ was the first newspaper to report on Joe Biden's mental fitness, journalism that was denounced by some left-leaning publications at the time. She also clashed with Mr Murdoch, with reports suggesting he was 'livid' with her after the WSJ described a newsletter launched by a former CNN reporter as a 'must-read'. Ms Tucker has also been outspoken about standing up to the Trump administration. Responding to claims by the CEO of Elon Musk's X that her newspaper had run a fake news story about the platform, she said: 'Many of the stories we publish do upset political leaders or CEOs, but we can't, you know, we have to be thinking about the validity of the story.' Ms Tucker will now likely face Mr Trump in court in some form as her paper defends the $10bn lawsuit. Whether full details of the alleged birthday card will come to light is not yet clear. Unlike the two reporters who brought her the story, and Mr Murdoch she is not named in Mr Trump's legal action. Since parts of the letter were published on Thursday, the Trump administration has already promised to release more transcripts from the investigations into Epstein. But the scandal shows little sign of going away. The release of the grand jury documents may fall short of what many of Mr Trump's supporters have sought. On Sunday, one of Epstein's former attorneys called on the US Justice Department to release additional investigative records from its sex-trafficking investigation, and urged the government to grant Ghislaine Maxwell – Epstein's former girlfriend and former British socialite – immunity so that she can testify about his crimes. In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Alan Dershowitz said the grand jury transcripts that Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday asked a federal judge to unseal would not contain the types of information being sought by Mr Trump's supporters, such as the names of Epstein's clientele. 'I think the judge should release it, but they are not in the grand jury transcripts,' Dershowitz said on the programme. 'I've seen some of these materials. For example, there is an FBI report of interviews with alleged victims in which at least one of the victims names very important people,' he said, adding that those names have been redacted.
Reuters
7 hours ago
- Reuters
Ex-Epstein lawyer calls for release of additional Epstein materials
WASHINGTON, July 20 (Reuters) - One of Jeffrey Epstein's former attorneys on Sunday called on the U.S. Justice Department to release additional investigative records from its sex-trafficking investigation, and urged the government to grant Epstein's former girlfriend immunity so that she can testify about his crimes. In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Alan Dershowitz said the grand jury transcripts that Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday asked a federal judge to unseal would not contain the types of information being sought by President Donald Trump's supporters, such as the names of Epstein's clientele. "I think the judge should release it, but they are not in the grand jury transcripts," Dershowitz said on Fox. "I've seen some of these materials. For example, there is an FBI report of interviews with alleged victims in which at least one of the victims names very important people," he said, adding that those names have been redacted. President Donald Trump has been under mounting pressure from his supporters to release additional information related to the government's sex-trafficking probe into Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in a Manhattan jail in 2019 while awaiting trial. Earlier this year, Bondi promised that the department would release additional materials including "a lot of names" and "a lot of flight logs." The department back-tracked on that promise earlier this month, after releasing a joint memo, opens new tab with the FBI which poured cold water on long-running conspiracy theories about Epstein by saying there was "no incriminating client list" or any evidence of blackmail. The memo also backed a prior FBI investigation which concluded that Epstein died by suicide and was not murdered in his jail cell. Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel have faced a growing backlash by Trump's supporters since the memo was issued, prompting Trump last week to order the department to ask a court to unseal grand jury transcripts from the Epstein case. The U.S. government on Friday filed a motion in a Manhattan federal court to unseal grand jury transcripts in the cases of Epstein and former associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of five federal charges related to her role in Epstein's sexual abuse of underage girls. Maxwell is appealing her conviction and 20-year prison sentence to the U.S. Supreme Court. The release of the grand jury documents may fall short of what many of Trump's supporters have sought, including case files held by the administration, and a judge may reject the administration's request to make the transcripts public. Dershowitz on Sunday told "Fox News Sunday" that the information that Bondi did not request to be unsealed would be "far more informative and far more relevant." He added that the government should also grant Maxwell immunity so that she could testify before Congress about what knowledge she has of Epstein's alleged crimes. "She knows everything. She is the Rosetta Stone," he said of Maxwell. "If she were just given use immunity, she could be compelled to testify."
