\n It doesn\u2019t get much more elite than being the brother of King Charles III or the favorite son \u2014 according to insiders<\/a> \u2014 of late Queen Elizabeth II. But blue blood did not spare Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor<\/a> from arrest in an investigation following the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.\n <\/p>\n \n The spectacle of the former Prince Andrew<\/a> being taken on Thursday from his new, downsized quarters in the British countryside to the grubby indignity of a police station escalated the gravest controversy to rock the royal family in generations.\n <\/p>\n \n Mountbatten-Windsor was questioned over suspicion of misconduct in office related to his time as a UK trade envoy. Previously, police said they were reviewing claims he had shared sensitive information with Epstein. Mountbatten-Windsor denied all prior wrongdoing but has not commented on the latest claims.\n <\/p>\n \n But his diminished reality was laid bare in the spare legalese of a police statement Thursday that said \u201ca man in his sixties from Norfolk\u201d had \u201cbeen released under investigation.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The principle that no one \u2014 not even the former Duke of York \u2014 is immune to the principle of equality before the law was reaffirmed in a statement by the King, notable for its icy distancing of the monarch from his brother.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cLet me state clearly: the law must take its course,\u201d it said.\n <\/p>\n \n The first arrest of a British royal in nearly 400 years posed this question: If legal authorities in Britain and elsewhere in Europe can act independently and breach the protected circle around Epstein\u2019s former network, why is there not a similar faith in the justice system in the US?\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cGreat Britain is holding its powerful and privileged to account. The United States of America should do the same,\u201d Democratic Rep. Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts told CNN\u2019s Kate Bolduan.\n <\/p>\n \n In the United Kingdom, the machinery of public investigation appears to be functioning as intended. It\u2019s harder to make that claim with confidence in the US given the politicization of a justice system<\/a> that has prosecuted President Donald Trump\u2019s opponents and a president who pardoned hundreds of people convicted of crimes linked to the January 6, 2021, riot.\n <\/p>\n \n The Trump DOJ had to be forced into every act of disclosure. And the only person offered legal relief so far is Ghislaine Maxwell, who gave testimony absolving the president of wrongdoing in his dealings with her former companion \u2014 and was moved to a more lenient prison<\/a> to serve her sex crimes sentence.\n <\/p>\n \n Amid an escalating campaign for justice by victims of Epstein, Trump has branded their trauma a \u201choax.\u201d He\u2019s said it\u2019s time for the country to move on. The performative outrage of Attorney General Pam Bondi, who last week refused to address Epstein survivors<\/a> in a congressional hearing, epitomized the attitude of an administration only forced into releasing the Epstein files by a new law passed late last year amid a Republican revolt.\n <\/p>\n The core issue at the heart of the Epstein scandal<\/p>\n \n There is no evidence of wrongdoing by the president in connection with his past friendship with Epstein. Yet Trump\u2019s desire to move on from the Epstein files \u2014 despite years of promising to release them \u2014 followed by his DOJ\u2019s chaotic, opaque handling of the matter has repeatedly fueled doubt about his motives.\n <\/p>\n \n He\u2019s hardly alone among prominent Americans \u2014 including former President Bill Clinton, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick \u2014 in facing questions about what they knew of Epstein\u2019s behavior. On Wednesday, billionaire businessman Les Wexner<\/a>, who helped facilitate Epstein\u2019s luxurious lifestyle, gave a deposition to a congressional committee investigating the alleged sex trafficking ring.\n <\/p>\n \n Like Trump, none of these men have been accused by law enforcement of criminal wrongdoing. But past associations with Epstein have now begun to cost prominent Americans in business, big law and the business end of the entertainment industry. Some have lost their jobs<\/a>. Others are defending their reputation.\n <\/p>\n \n The DOJ may be justified in insisting that there is insufficient evidence of wrongdoing to charge anyone with crimes over their ties to Epstein.\n <\/p>\n \n This does not, however, address the core issues in the scandal. Even if prosecutions aren\u2019t possible, what about an accounting for scores of women allegedly abused by Epstein? If there was a sex trafficking ring operating in the United States, shouldn\u2019t the government be investigating it, if only to ensure it never happens again? And isn\u2019t the country owed answers about the circle of rich and influential people who continued to associate with Epstein even after his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor.\n <\/p>\n \n These questions do not concern the Trump administration alone. There is no public evidence that the Biden administration pursued active inquiries into Epstein or his former orbit after his death.\n <\/p>\n \n A recurring lesson of the Epstein saga is that each effort Trump makes to close it down only seems to give it new political life.\n <\/p>\n \n But the disclosure of the material unleashed accountability. The British investigation into Mountbatten-Windsor, for example, followed the document dump. So did a separate criminal probe into former British ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson<\/a>. The onetime cabinet minister is being investigated<\/a> over claims he passed sensitive information to Epstein that would have been valuable on Wall Street. Mandelson in January said: \u201cI want to say loudly and clearly that I was wrong to believe (Epstein) following his conviction and to continue my association with him afterwards. I apologize unequivocally for doing so to the women and girls who suffered.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The Epstein files have also led to investigations in Norway<\/a> and Poland<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n This all represents vindication for lawmakers who pushed for their release and for Epstein victims who stepped up their campaign last year.\n <\/p>\n \n Some Epstein survivors hope that Thursday\u2019s stunning developments will fuel more disclosure in the US.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt\u2019s amazing. And it\u2019s really, really something that all the survivors have been looking forward and working towards,\u201d Marina Lacerda told CNN\u2019s John Berman. \u201cI just look at it, it\u2019s insane how everyone\u2019s taking action. And we are doing nothing in the United States.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Lacerda\u2019s story does not intersect with Mountbatten-Windsor\u2019s, but she is a prominent voice in the victims\u2019 movement.\n <\/p>\n \n While the British investigation into Mountbatten-Windsor is predicated on concerns about his role as a trade envoy, it could open windows into other areas of his life. Most tantalizingly, it could lean into what was known about his alleged activities inside the government and his family.\n <\/p>\n \n Since everything about the royals is huge news, every development in the case will refocus attention on the Epstein matter \u2014 and new contrasts with the way it\u2019s being handled by the Trump administration.\n <\/p>\n \n Spencer Kuvin, a lawyer who represents nine Epstein victims, told \u201cCNN News Central\u201d that the most important breakthrough Thursday was \u201cat least on behalf of the victims is that regardless of title, institution, social standing or power, that these men will be held to account.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Thursday also offered some consolation to the family of the late Virginia Giuffre<\/a>, to whom Mountbatten-Windsor reportedly paid millions of dollars in 2022 to settle a case in which she alleged sexual assault. \u201cToday, our broken hearts have been lifted at the news that no one is above the law, not even royalty,\u201d her family said in a statement<\/a>. Mountbatten-Windsor said he had no recollection of ever meeting Giuffre and settled her lawsuit without admitting responsibility or wrongdoing.\n <\/p>\n \n Yet hopes that investigations elsewhere could open a dam of accountability in the United States could only be dashed by Trump\u2019s first comments about Mountbatten-Windsor\u2019s arrest.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt\u2019s really interesting, because nobody used to speak about Epstein when he was alive, but now they speak. But I\u2019m the one that can talk about it, because I\u2019ve been totally exonerated,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI did nothing. In fact, the opposite \u2014 he was against me, he was fighting me in the election, which I just found out throughout the last 3 million pages of documents.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n While the president regards the Epstein affair as a plot against him, women seeking recognition for wrongs they suffered as young girls are likely to be disappointed.\n <\/p>\n \n And the idea that the US justice system, like its British counterpart, could operate independently of the head of state \u2014 even if it causes him great embarrassment \u2014 is no longer credible.\n <\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/c-2025-09-03t114124z-1027014422-rc2bkgaeuerh-rtrmadp-3-usa-trump-epstein.jpg\")
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