Source: United States Department of Justice
A new email from the Epstein Files document dump reveals that Epstein believed then-Prince Charles was responsible for then-Prince Andrew’s removal from his position as UK trade envoy in July 2011.
Here’s the context:
Early 2011 was a rough time for Prince Andrew (now Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor1).
On Feb. 20, the News of the World published the now-infamous photo of Andrew and Epstein walking together in Central Park that had been taken in December 2010. Then, on March 2, the Mail on Sunday2 published the now-infamous photo of Andrew with his arm around a 17 year-old Virginia Roberts (née Virginia Giuffre) along with a detailed interview about their alleged sexual encounters while she was underage.
Fun fact! In between these two photodrops, on Feb. 28, 2011, Andrew emailed Epstein, “we’re in this together.”
After both of these stories emerged, a number of British lawmakers called for Andrew to resign his position as a trade envoy, a role he had held since 2001. What’s a trade envoy? I’m glad you asked. According to the BBC, it’s a role “promoting UK business internationally, marketing the UK to potential inward investors, and building relationships in support of UK business interests.”
His usefulness was debated. He was warned that any more “revelations” would spell the end of his trade envoy career.
As always, the Queen had her favorite son’s back. On March 6, Buckingham Palace issued an official statement, saying, “The prince remains fully committed to his role as special representative and it's understood that the government backs him on this point." Then-Prime Minister David Cameron also backed Andrew in a statement on March 7, saying, “We fully support Prince Andrew in his role as trade envoy. Our position is very clear. There is no review of his role."
As this was going down, David Stern — who did not work for Andrew at this time — was keeping Epstein updated on the UK media coverage of the then-Duke of York and his friendship with the financier.
Although Andrew’s Epstein connections dominated the news cycle for a few weeks, as time continued, the stories and press attention… stopped. (There was a Very Important Royal Wedding happening in April 2011, and then a new duke and duchess to cover.)
In April, there was a bit of press coverage on Andrew hosting a summit to promote UK fashion overseas. In June, a Vanity Fair profile titled “The Trouble With Andrew” was published. But for the most part, Andrew was not in the news at all.
Thus, it was a surprise when, on July 21, news broke that the then-Duke of York would be stepping down from his role as trade envoy.
And emails found in the Epstein Files indicate that Epstein might have known about it before Andrew did.
As you can see, Stern’s first instinct is that Andrew has been set up.
And, later that day, Epstein sends a message to Stern that seems to agree with his earlier assessment.
Here’s the email in which Epstein blames Charles for Andrew’s removal as trade envoy:
“But Ellie, there’s a name redacted in that screenshot, how do you know that Epstein’s emailing David Stern?”
Because the United States government is really bad at redacting.
At least as far as I’ve been able to find3, that’s the last email on the subject — as you can see, Epstein declined to provide any further information and did not cite his sources.
I’ve written this up because we know that Epstein was a person who had access to highly sensitive information and considering the fact that “charles” is now King Charles, this is newsworthy.
1 A note for the pedantic: Since Mountbatten-Windsor was still Prince Andrew, Duke of York during the time relevant to this story, I’m going to style him as such.
2 I would’ve linked to this court document on the Department of Justice’s page, but it seems like all of the links to files from this legal case are broken. Let’s all say thank you to Roll Call for having uploaded it in full!
3 Given the millions of emails, it’s likely that someone else could find something, and if that’s true, I’ll obviously be updating this story, with the appropriate person credited.