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Prince Andrew...Jeffrey Epstein's Useful Idiot · The Vault: The Epstein Files

0:00
Speaker 1: What's up everyone and welcome back to the Epstein Chronicles.
0:05
Speaker 1: Prince Andrew has always been a useful idiot for just
0:10
Speaker 1: about everybody he's hanging out with. Now, the only thing
0:14
Speaker 1: he ever brings to the table, obviously, is the fact
0:17
Speaker 1: that he is a prince. Certainly not bringing any sort
0:22
Speaker 1: of business knowledge to the table. Not bringing any kind
0:26
Speaker 1: of financial support to the table. So all he ever had, really,
0:31
Speaker 1: was his title. And we know that Jeffrey Epstein used him.
0:36
Speaker 1: We know that Jeffrey Epstein kept him around because he
0:40
Speaker 1: was one of his favorite pets in the menagerie. But
0:44
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein also told people what a useful idiot Prince
0:47
Speaker 1: Andrew was. And in an article today, a rather lengthy
0:51
Speaker 1: article today, from The Telegraph, author Tina Brown goes into it.
0:57
Speaker 1: So I'll keep my whinging short and we'll jump directly
1:01
Speaker 1: into this article this morning from the Telegraph. Headline. Jeffrey
1:06
Speaker 1: Epstein told people that Prince Andrew was an idiot, but
1:10
Speaker 1: a useful one. This article was authored, like I said,
1:15
Speaker 1: by Tina Brown. Prince Andrew was outraged in 2011. and
1:22
Speaker 1: Scotland Yard had informed him that his two daughters, Princess
1:26
Speaker 1: Eugenie and Beatrice, fifth and sixth in line to the
1:29
Speaker 1: throne respectively, were to be stripped of their 24-hour police
1:33
Speaker 1: protection after rising tensions about the £ 500, 000 annual whammy to
1:40
Speaker 1: the taxpayer. Yo, that's a lot of money, folks. £ 500, 000
1:44
Speaker 1: annually that the taxpayer has to foot for security? For
1:49
Speaker 1: the girls who are 5th and 6th in line for
1:52
Speaker 1: the throne? I mean, come on now. Look, if we
1:56
Speaker 1: were talking about the old days, and we had to
1:59
Speaker 1: keep the royal house secure so that they could inherit,
2:05
Speaker 1: it's not like that anymore. You really mean to tell
2:08
Speaker 1: me that the people 6th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 12th in
2:12
Speaker 1: line should have these huge security details? Kind of a
2:16
Speaker 1: waste of money in my opinion. Andrew had fought ferociously
2:21
Speaker 1: to keep his girl's security detail on the grounds that
2:24
Speaker 1: they had HRH before their names. At a dinner in June,
2:28
Speaker 1: Andrew solicited a private drink with Tory MP Hugo Swire
2:33
Speaker 1: to ask him to have a word with Prime Minister
2:36
Speaker 1: David Cameron about the decision. And you see how it works, right?
2:40
Speaker 1: You or I, if we go ahead and call your congressman,
2:43
Speaker 1: call your state senator. And see how quickly you end
2:46
Speaker 1: up talking to an intern. See how quickly you end
2:48
Speaker 1: up talking to an office worker. We don't have the
2:53
Speaker 1: pull or the ability to set up a dinner with
2:57
Speaker 1: our local congressman or whatever and try and get them
3:00
Speaker 1: to sway policy on our behalf or to get them
3:03
Speaker 1: to speak to their colleagues on our behalf. Unfortunately, we
3:08
Speaker 1: aren't represented, at least here in the United States. Just
3:12
Speaker 1: take a look at how many people Each one of
3:14
Speaker 1: these representatives supposedly represents, and you tell me that everyone's
3:19
Speaker 1: being represented fairly. He is desperately concerned, Swire's diarist wife
3:26
Speaker 1: Sasha wrote. His argument is that they move around in
3:29
Speaker 1: the age of Twitter and Facebook and instant messaging, and
3:33
Speaker 1: that an antagonistic force could be mobilized against them in
3:37
Speaker 1: a matter of minutes. Unfortunately, those same platforms... often show
3:42
Speaker 1: the sociable young princesses tottering out of expensive London nightclubs
3:47
Speaker 1: in the early hours with protection officers in tow. A
3:51
Speaker 1: purring official SUV waited outside restaurants to ferry them back home.
3:56
Speaker 1: Not so much to forestall a kidnapping, but as a
4:00
Speaker 1: glorified Uber service. That's exactly what it is. Come on,
4:03
Speaker 1: let's be real. If you want to have a security detail,
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Speaker 1: pay for it yourself, like everybody else does who wants
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Speaker 1: to have one. Why should Ed and Edith, the common
4:15
Speaker 1: folk of England, be on the hook? A year later,
4:20
Speaker 1: Andrew had further reason to feel snubbed. Shortly before he
4:24
Speaker 1: aborted the No. 2 barge, an insult in itself, at
4:27
Speaker 1: the Diamond Jubilee River pageant, he learned that he and
4:31
Speaker 1: his daughters had been cut off from the iconic royal
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Speaker 1: finish on the Buckingham Palace balcony. nor were they on
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Speaker 1: the list for an event with 700 dignitaries at Westminster
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Speaker 1: Hall just beforehand. Well, you can't have that. If Andrew
4:46
Speaker 1: ain't hobnobbing out there and, you know, getting to put
4:49
Speaker 1: his hand in somebody's pocket, then it was mission unaccomplished.
4:56
Speaker 1: Another guest on the barge heard him whinging about it
4:59
Speaker 1: to Sophie Wessex, whose invitation was also lost in the mail.
5:04
Speaker 1: The image of a curated royal family struck the right
5:07
Speaker 1: note at a time of economic austerity. But a former
5:11
Speaker 1: aide told me, I hear there were literally people restraining
5:14
Speaker 1: members of the family trying to get to the balcony.
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Speaker 1: These are the people that you all put on a pedestal.
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Speaker 1: These are the people that we should care about. Sorry,
5:24
Speaker 1: not me. These people are so tone deaf and so
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Speaker 1: blind to the situation that That they're fighting over each
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Speaker 1: other to see who gets to stand on the balcony
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Speaker 1: and be pictured with the queen and the royal family?
5:41
Speaker 1: Here's an idea. Take some of that vast wealth that
5:44
Speaker 1: you have, some of that vast fortune that you have,
5:47
Speaker 1: and go and give some of it out. Worried about
5:50
Speaker 1: getting in a picture with the queen on the balcony?
5:52
Speaker 1: What a bunch of goofballs. These indignities only increased Andrew's
5:59
Speaker 1: sense of being marginalized in Charles' campaign to slim down
6:02
Speaker 1: the monarchy. Even as it was, he had to live
6:06
Speaker 1: on the hardly lavish £ 250, 000 annually from the civil list
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Speaker 1: for his official activities and a Royal Navy pension of
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Speaker 1: about £ 20, 000 per year, plus an unspecified allowance that followed
6:20
Speaker 1: the vagaries of the Queen's goodwill. Isn't that nice? I mean...
6:24
Speaker 1: it must be rough to have to live on 270,000
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Speaker 1: pounds per year. I know that must be real difficult
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Speaker 1: to pay your bills and have a little bit left over. Oh, wait,
6:33
Speaker 1: you live for free, right? Oh, I forgot. So how
6:37
Speaker 1: is in $ 270, 000, 270,000 pounds, not a decent enough amount
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Speaker 1: of money. You still got to get out there. You
6:44
Speaker 1: still got to steal. You still got to be a thief,
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Speaker 1: grift the whole nine. Slipping members in the line of
6:55
Speaker 1: succession are like creatures in a Middle Eastern harem. Captives
7:00
Speaker 1: of luxury everyone resents, but without the wherewithal or expertise
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Speaker 1: to pursue successful lives beyond. And the way the queen
7:09
Speaker 1: doles out the money is remarkably personal. Family members wait
7:14
Speaker 1: in trepidation to learn of her decisions. Yeah, she's not
7:18
Speaker 1: this nice old lady that we all think about. I'm
7:21
Speaker 1: sure of that at this point. She is, you know,
7:24
Speaker 1: a monarch and she's everything that you could expect with
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Speaker 1: a monarch. Cold, calculating, only caring about the firm, certainly
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Speaker 1: not caring about the survivors. And obviously lording over the
7:39
Speaker 1: rest of the family, you know, controlling them basically with
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Speaker 1: financial decisions. An indefinite dependence on one's mother is both
7:52
Speaker 1: embarrassing and dangerously unrealistic. Kate Waddington, a former wingwoman for
7:57
Speaker 1: the Duchess of York, told me in 2006, the ridiculous
8:02
Speaker 1: thing that even when she was with Andrew, she paid
8:05
Speaker 1: for all the house decorations herself. She was always informed
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Speaker 1: there is no money. Andrew would arrive on a skiing
8:13
Speaker 1: holiday and he'd have no stuff and she'd have to
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Speaker 1: buy it. And that's how it's always been, right? He's
8:18
Speaker 1: always known that his mother was going to be there
8:21
Speaker 1: for him. She was going to pick up the slack.
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Speaker 1: She was going to be there to make sure that
8:25
Speaker 1: he had all of his skiing equipment. I mean, come on, man.
8:30
Speaker 1: How many times do we have to talk about it?
8:32
Speaker 1: He's the type of dude that shows up to your
8:33
Speaker 1: door with his arms empty, nothing in them, right? Just
8:37
Speaker 1: ringing on the doorbell, showing up, expecting everything to be
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Speaker 1: there for him. The exact kind of person you stop
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Speaker 1: inviting to your events. Andrew's role from 2001 to 2011
8:51
Speaker 1: as the UK's special representative for international trade and investment
8:56
Speaker 1: offered him multiple opportunities for dubious personal networking to enhance
9:00
Speaker 1: his income. It allowed him to swan around the world
9:04
Speaker 1: at government expense, playing golf, brokering deals on sidebar excursions,
9:10
Speaker 1: and partying with big-breasted beauty queens. That was the best
9:13
Speaker 1: part for him, right? The more girls, the better for
9:17
Speaker 1: Hansy Andy, the Joe Exotic of the Windsor family, the
9:20
Speaker 1: Clown Prince of England. He insisted on flying private and
9:26
Speaker 1: traveled with an entourage of servants, including a valet who
9:30
Speaker 1: lugged a preposterous six-foot-long ironing board through the lobby of
9:35
Speaker 1: five-star hotels. The Daily Telegraph reported that in 2010, the
9:39
Speaker 1: Duke of York had spent £ 465, 000 on flights, And 154,000
9:47
Speaker 1: pounds on food and hotels on his trade missions. Man,
9:51
Speaker 1: that's a lot of food. 154,000 pounds. What are you eating, bro?
9:58
Speaker 1: I mean, how much money can you pocket? spend on food?
10:01
Speaker 1: So his trips alone. We're looking at what? Roughly. Oh
10:07
Speaker 1: I don't know. 609,000 pounds. Roughly. Must be nice to
10:13
Speaker 1: be able to just. You know. Pull that money out
10:16
Speaker 1: from the public. Former minister in the former office and
10:20
Speaker 1: labor MP, Chris Bryant, told me that it was common
10:24
Speaker 1: parlance that the last thing the FO wanted was Andrew
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Speaker 1: on a trip because he'd offend half the people at
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Speaker 1: the dinner table, go off on secret missions, and return
10:33
Speaker 1: laden with gifts. And on top of that, he was
10:36
Speaker 1: a nightmare because he insisted on more acreage and hotels
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Speaker 1: than any other member of the royal family. When we
10:43
Speaker 1: went to Davos, he had a bigger chalet than everyone
10:47
Speaker 1: else And everyone went, why? Well, that's because he has to,
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Speaker 1: you know, show that he is better than you. He
10:54
Speaker 1: is top dog. I am the queen's son. That's basically
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Speaker 1: what he says all the time with all of his
11:00
Speaker 1: stupid requests. International diplomacy rarely offers encounters with angels. But
11:08
Speaker 1: Prince Andrew's adhesive contacts with reprehensible foreign riffraff went far
11:14
Speaker 1: beyond what was explicable or acceptable. He hosted lunches at
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Speaker 1: Buckingham Palace. Four relatives of Middle Eastern tyrants invited a
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Speaker 1: Libyan gun smuggler to Princess Eugenie's wedding and Princess Beatrice's
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Speaker 1: 21st birthday party and went goose hunting with Kazakhstan then-president
11:33
Speaker 1: Nursultan Nazarbayev. the Kazakh strongman's baby-faced billionaire son-in-law bought the
11:41
Speaker 1: York's white elephant pile, Sunning Hill Park, for £ 3 million
11:45
Speaker 1: over its £ 12 million asking price. This was doubly puzzling
11:50
Speaker 1: because the only enhancements to the house since the York's
11:53
Speaker 1: occupation was a new zoning designation that put it under
11:57
Speaker 1: the direct flight path of Heathrow Airport. So again, why
12:01
Speaker 1: would he get so much money for this property? Why would... this,
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Speaker 1: we'll loosely call him a politician from Kazakhstan, have any
12:13
Speaker 1: interest in buying this property from Andrew at such a
12:17
Speaker 1: inflated price? There are plenty of things to speculate about, right?
12:23
Speaker 1: Are you buying influence? Are you buying an into the
12:26
Speaker 1: royal house? Are you buying, what is it that you're
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Speaker 1: purchasing with this 3 million pounds over asking price? Andrew
12:35
Speaker 1: wasn't much better on his own turf. The former Labor
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Speaker 1: Foreign Secretary Jackie Smith recalled on LBC Radio in 2019
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Speaker 1: that a 2007 state banquet at Buckingham Palace for the
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Speaker 1: Saudi king, she and her husband were left slack-jawed by
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Speaker 1: the awful jokes Andrew made involving camels. At a lunch
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Speaker 1: with then-London Assembly Chair Darren Johnson and then-London Mayor Boris Johnson,
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Speaker 1: Boris was so appalled by Andrew's inane pitch for city improvements,
13:06
Speaker 1: he commented to the chairman on the way out, I'm
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Speaker 1: the last person to be a Republican. But fuck, if
13:13
Speaker 1: I ever have to spend another lunch like that, I
13:15
Speaker 1: soon will be. Okay, well, I guess Boris Johnson was
13:19
Speaker 1: none too plus of Andrew's ideas. Imagine that meeting, meeting
13:23
Speaker 1: of the minds. Boris Johnson with that goofy ass haircut,
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Speaker 1: Prince Andrew with that goofy ass face. All the goofy
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Speaker 1: ideas that must have come of that meeting. Andrew, unfortunately,
13:34
Speaker 1: exhibited classic symptoms of what is scientifically recognized as the
13:39
Speaker 1: Dunning-Kruger effect. The cognitive bias in which people come to
13:44
Speaker 1: believe that they are smarter and more capable than they
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Speaker 1: really are. Boy, this is an affliction that a lot
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Speaker 1: of these so-called elites are suffering from. Andrew, most certainly.
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Speaker 1: Dude is not as smart as he thinks he is.
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Speaker 1: None of them are. Not as slick as he thinks
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Speaker 1: he is. None of them are. And certainly... not as
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Speaker 1: honorable as he thinks he is. The combination of minimal
14:10
Speaker 1: self-awareness and dim wattage leads sufferers of this condition to
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Speaker 1: overestimate their own capabilities. Years of enjoying unearned obedience to
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Speaker 1: his royal position allowed Andrew to bang on with a
14:25
Speaker 1: combination of overweening self-confidence and unchallenged ignorance. It also made
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Speaker 1: him an easy mark for conmen and crooks. Well, look,
14:34
Speaker 1: when you're a grifter and you're so worried about how
14:37
Speaker 1: much money you could get from the people you're around
14:40
Speaker 1: and you're not worried about the scumbaggery that they're up to, well,
14:43
Speaker 1: you know, you know how it goes. His position as
14:48
Speaker 1: Britain's trade ambassador could not possibly last, and it didn't.
14:53
Speaker 1: Andrew's unsavory sub-Rosa life suddenly blew up, thanks in part
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Speaker 1: to the publication in February 2011 in the New York Post,
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Speaker 1: A photo taken of the previous December of Andrew strolling
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Speaker 1: in Central Park with the American financier, pedophile, and sex offender,
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Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein, just five months after Epstein was released from
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Speaker 1: a Florida jail for the solicitation of minors for raping
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Speaker 1: a child and calling her a prostitute. That's really what happened.
15:23
Speaker 1: Let's call it what it is. The revelations were compounded
15:27
Speaker 1: by the news and the telegraph that in 2009, at
15:29
Speaker 1: Andrew's request, had given money to one of the parentally
15:35
Speaker 1: broke Duchess of York's personal assistants to satisfy a paltry
15:39
Speaker 1: debt of 15,000 pounds. Andrew wasn't the first prominent sucker
15:44
Speaker 1: to be taken in by the world-class manipulator Epstein. The
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Speaker 1: New York power player, said to be worth at least
15:51
Speaker 1: $ 500 million from a little-understood investing career, Used to perfection
15:57
Speaker 1: is customized Boeing 727, dubbed the Lolita Express because of
16:02
Speaker 1: its cargo of young women. Look, Fergie accepted money from Epstein.
16:10
Speaker 1: Andrew accepted money from Epstein. They all accepted money from Epstein.
16:14
Speaker 1: Then not only that, as we see here, he went
16:16
Speaker 1: and hung out at Epstein's house after Epstein was arrested.
16:21
Speaker 1: There is no excuse for any of that. No, there's
16:24
Speaker 1: no way that you could make anyone understand any of that.
16:34
Speaker 1: It had a rolling manifest of global masters of the universe,
16:38
Speaker 1: all who love to fly, Air Jeff. Whether you're a
16:42
Speaker 1: former president or a former CEO, it seems one of
16:45
Speaker 1: the hazards of flying private It's that some strange craving
16:48
Speaker 1: enters the soul and makes it unbearable to ever fly
16:52
Speaker 1: commercial again. Now look, let's be clear about something. If
16:56
Speaker 1: I could fly private as opposed to commercial, I would
16:58
Speaker 1: do it in a heartbeat. Flying commercially is such a
17:01
Speaker 1: pain in the balls. Gotta wait in the lines, people
17:05
Speaker 1: around you, kids crying, the whole thing. I hate it.
17:08
Speaker 1: So if I could fly privately, I would too. But
17:11
Speaker 1: not if I was flying on the dime of the
17:13
Speaker 1: people of the United States. I mean, come on, man.
17:20
Speaker 1: Epstein had houses to entertain them in as well. A
17:23
Speaker 1: gate spread in Palm Beach, his own Caribbean island, a
17:26
Speaker 1: sprawling ranch in Santa Fe, and a $ 56 million 40-room
17:30
Speaker 1: Manhattan mansion. Even if it wasn't down to the strange
17:34
Speaker 1: vibes of numerous teenage girls coming in and out of
17:37
Speaker 1: his seven-story townhouse, one would have thought the tell for
17:41
Speaker 1: these guests would be the grotesquely vulgar and very weird decor.
17:47
Speaker 1: There were, according to New York Magazine, a life-size female
17:51
Speaker 1: doll hanging from a chandelier, a row of individually framed
17:54
Speaker 1: artificial eyeballs in a hallway, a portrait of Bill Clinton
17:58
Speaker 1: wearing Monica Lewinsky's blue dress, and a huge chessboard with
18:02
Speaker 1: customized figurines modeled after suggestively attired members of his staff
18:08
Speaker 1: that one guest described as hair-raising in its commitment to
18:13
Speaker 1: creeping people the fuck out. Yeah, that would be a
18:16
Speaker 1: little creepy, huh? Imagine you had a boss and he
18:19
Speaker 1: made a chess set with each piece in the likeness
18:22
Speaker 1: of you and your coworkers. Probably be looking for a
18:25
Speaker 1: new job pretty quick. I had an unsettling encounter with
18:32
Speaker 1: Epstein myself when I was the editor of the Daily Beast.
18:35
Speaker 1: The Cuban-born sex trafficking activist and journalist Conchita Sarnoff came
18:40
Speaker 1: to me with a story about that Epstein had committed
18:43
Speaker 1: not one, but multiple crimes against minors as young as 14. Yet,
18:48
Speaker 1: thanks to a sweetheart deal with prosecutors, he had only
18:52
Speaker 1: served 13 months in a private wing of the Palm
18:55
Speaker 1: Beach County Stockade, plus a measly 18 months under house arrest,
19:00
Speaker 1: during which he was still able to travel to multiple homes.
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Speaker 1: All of these details and more appeared in the six
19:08
Speaker 1: exposés we published between July 10th and March 2011, excuse me,
19:13
Speaker 1: July 2010, and March 2011. I can proudly say that
19:18
Speaker 1: her reports in The Beast were the first to reveal
19:21
Speaker 1: the extent of Epstein's depredation. And I remember when I
19:26
Speaker 1: was first hearing about Epstein way back in the day,
19:29
Speaker 1: when all of these reports were first coming out. And
19:33
Speaker 1: the depths of it escaped me, honestly. I thought there
19:37
Speaker 1: was no way that a guy could have gotten away
19:39
Speaker 1: with the stuff that they were talking about. How in
19:41
Speaker 1: the hell is that even possible? But yet, all these
19:44
Speaker 1: years later, here we are. And, you know, I can
19:49
Speaker 1: tell you. it was all true. The stuff that when
19:52
Speaker 1: you first hear about this stuff, it seems like it's fake.
19:54
Speaker 1: It seems like there's no way that this could have
19:56
Speaker 1: happened for this long under so many different presidents. It
20:00
Speaker 1: just seems like there's no way. But then when you
20:02
Speaker 1: get into it, man, oh, man. You find yourself immersed
20:07
Speaker 1: and all you can do is tell yourself, holy shit,
20:13
Speaker 1: it all is true. Because when you get down to it,
20:17
Speaker 1: how long did people say it was just a conspiracy? Oh,
20:19
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein was just a depraved guy who was chasing
20:22
Speaker 1: his own proclivities. When in reality, we knew it was
20:25
Speaker 1: much larger. And not only is it continental in the
20:31
Speaker 1: United States... This spans multiple continents. Shortly before we published
20:38
Speaker 1: Conchita's first piece, I returned to my glass-walled office at
20:42
Speaker 1: the Beast and found Epstein sitting there. How he got
20:45
Speaker 1: through front desk security, I will never know, but it
20:48
Speaker 1: perhaps speaks to his celebrated gifts for conning his way
20:52
Speaker 1: into anywhere. He was snake-eyed and terse. Just stop, he
20:56
Speaker 1: said heavily as I stood staring at him from the doorway.
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Speaker 1: Just stop. There will be consequences if you don't. I
21:02
Speaker 1: thanked him for his suggestion and told him to talk
21:05
Speaker 1: to our lawyers. You heard me, he said. Stop. And
21:08
Speaker 1: he left. So you know it's serious when Epstein himself
21:11
Speaker 1: shows up and he doesn't send one of his flunkies.
21:15
Speaker 1: And the reason he didn't want all of this stuff
21:17
Speaker 1: to run, obviously, is because it was all true. After
21:21
Speaker 1: the pieces ran, I waited the legal bomb with trepidation,
21:25
Speaker 1: but it never came. Instead, Epstein let fly a blizzard
21:30
Speaker 1: of press releases about his philanthropic activities. Perhaps he gambled
21:35
Speaker 1: that the reports would not get picked up by other
21:37
Speaker 1: news outlets. He was right. The pieces generated chatter in
21:41
Speaker 1: New York circles, but this was pre-Me Too. Before sexual
21:45
Speaker 1: abuse of women by powerful men was topic A on
21:49
Speaker 1: the news agenda. And let's be real, me too really
21:54
Speaker 1: didn't help out the survivors of Epstein. Where were they
21:58
Speaker 1: all at during the Epstein trial? They came out in
22:00
Speaker 1: force for Harvey Weinstein's trial, right? They came out in
22:03
Speaker 1: force when Kavanaugh was up there. But where was everybody
22:06
Speaker 1: at when these survivors were, you know, going through the
22:09
Speaker 1: trial with Maxwell? What did Andrew see in the shadowy financier, pedophile?
22:16
Speaker 1: Epstein always knew the right psychic buttons to press. There
22:20
Speaker 1: was a hollowness in the Duke's personality. That's why he
22:23
Speaker 1: laughed louder and boasted so much. He knew that for
22:27
Speaker 1: all the palaces he lived in and servants who served him,
22:31
Speaker 1: he was the second son whose childhood parody with Charles
22:35
Speaker 1: was a mirage. Epstein deftly exploited Andrew's sense of grievance.
22:40
Speaker 1: The wife of a financier who sat next to Andrew
22:44
Speaker 1: at an Epstein dinner told me how the prince suddenly declared,
22:48
Speaker 1: I don't know why people don't pay us royals more respect. Well,
22:51
Speaker 1: because you're all detestable. That's why you're all gross. Privately,
22:56
Speaker 1: Epstein told people that Andrew was an idiot, but to him,
23:00
Speaker 1: a useful one. A senior royal, even if tainted, is
23:04
Speaker 1: always a potent magnate abroad. Epstein confided to a friend
23:08
Speaker 1: that he used to fly the Duke to obscure foreign
23:11
Speaker 1: markets where governments were obliged to receive him, and Epstein
23:15
Speaker 1: went along as HRH's investment advisor. With Andrew as frontman,
23:22
Speaker 1: Epstein could negotiate deals with these often shady players. Of course,
23:27
Speaker 1: it was another in for Epstein. Everything was an in
23:29
Speaker 1: for Epstein. And every person and their back was a ladder.
23:36
Speaker 1: This dude had no real friends. All he cared about
23:38
Speaker 1: was collecting more and compromise more information and more power
23:42
Speaker 1: along the way. Epstein made Andrew feel he had joined
23:46
Speaker 1: the big time. the deals, the girls, the plane, the
23:49
Speaker 1: glittering New York world, where he wasn't seen as a
23:52
Speaker 1: full-grown man still dependent on his mother's privy purse strings
23:56
Speaker 1: or on the harsh pecking order of the palace. The
23:59
Speaker 1: Duke was always as oversexed as a boob-oggling adolescent. Okay, well,
24:06
Speaker 1: that's one way to put it. The dude has a reputation,
24:09
Speaker 1: if you will. And again, look, if you're just a
24:11
Speaker 1: playboy prince, I have no problem with that. Hell, if
24:15
Speaker 1: people want to hang out with you and spend their
24:17
Speaker 1: time with you and they're over 18 and they're consenting,
24:20
Speaker 1: not my business. I don't know how many times I
24:22
Speaker 1: got to say that, you know, that other people might
24:25
Speaker 1: have grievances with it. But me personally, I don't spend
24:28
Speaker 1: time worrying about what other adults do with their lives
24:30
Speaker 1: as long as they're not, you know, hurting children or
24:33
Speaker 1: trafficking women. Besides that, I really don't give a fuck
24:36
Speaker 1: what anybody does in their bedroom. Not my business. I
24:41
Speaker 1: am told that former U.S. ambassador to the U.K., Walter
24:44
Speaker 1: Annenberg's wife, Lee, was appalled when the Duke made a
24:48
Speaker 1: private visit in 1993 to Sunnylands, their magnificent Palm Springs
24:52
Speaker 1: estate in California, and holed up in his bedroom for
24:56
Speaker 1: two days, apparently watching porn on cable TV. I mean, really?
25:00
Speaker 1: You're the Duke of York, and you come to these
25:04
Speaker 1: people's home, and you hang out in your room and
25:07
Speaker 1: watch porn? What are you, Adam Sandler's character from That's
25:12
Speaker 1: My Boy? The privacy of Epstein's homes was a valuable
25:19
Speaker 1: prerequisite to a prince always trying to avoid palace censure
25:23
Speaker 1: and the scorn of the press. On visits to New York,
25:26
Speaker 1: instead of staying, as expected, at the British Consulate, Andrew
25:30
Speaker 1: stayed just five blocks away with Epstein so often he
25:34
Speaker 1: was given his own grandly decorated guest suite. The sardonic
25:37
Speaker 1: Epstein christened it The Britannica Suite. Oh, ha, ha, ha, ha.
25:42
Speaker 1: I am so clever. We'll call this the Britannica Suite. Quick,
25:46
Speaker 1: somebody get me my massage jacket. A key figure in
25:50
Speaker 1: the Andrew Epstein relationship was the woman who introduced them.
25:54
Speaker 1: Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of Press Baron Robert Maxwell, who disappeared
25:59
Speaker 1: mysteriously in 1991 over the side of his yacht off
26:02
Speaker 1: the coast of the Canary Islands. Ghislaine fell madly in
26:06
Speaker 1: love with Epstein, bull shit. But the affair was brief,
26:09
Speaker 1: never an affair. As a strong-willed, mature woman with a
26:12
Speaker 1: short pixie haircut, she was nothing like the pliable, pre-adolescent
26:16
Speaker 1: waifs Epstein liked to dominate. Stop with the nonsense. Please
26:20
Speaker 1: stop telling your readers something that is not true. All right?
26:23
Speaker 1: They were never in love. They was never romantic. These
26:26
Speaker 1: were two assets that were put together and told to
26:29
Speaker 1: run a scam. Their relationship quickly turned transactional. Epstein made
26:37
Speaker 1: the money, and Ghislaine Maxwell made the introductions. Unable to
26:41
Speaker 1: hold his sexual attention, she found a way to keep
26:44
Speaker 1: him at her side by recruiting nubiles, as she called them,
26:47
Speaker 1: to service his insatiable needs. Ghislaine was omnipresent in the
26:53
Speaker 1: strata that gathered to celebrate perfume launches, art gallery openings,
26:58
Speaker 1: and air-kissing black-tie charity galas. Of course she was there
27:02
Speaker 1: for the art gallery openings. How else are they going to,
27:05
Speaker 1: you know, launder their money? We all know that they
27:08
Speaker 1: use the art market to launder tons and tons of money.
27:13
Speaker 1: Their relationship quickly, excuse me, past that, the primary focus
27:17
Speaker 1: of Ghislaine's childhood was pleasing and performing for her explosive father.
27:22
Speaker 1: Eleanor Berry, daughter of then Daily Telegraph owner, Lord Hartwell,
27:27
Speaker 1: tells an unnerving story of the 10-year-old Ghislaine inviting her
27:31
Speaker 1: to see her bedroom at Headington Hill Hall. Barry noticed
27:35
Speaker 1: an odd-shaped hairbrush, a strap, a slipper, and other implements
27:39
Speaker 1: laid out on the child's dressing room table. Ghislaine said
27:43
Speaker 1: rather proudly, This is what Daddy uses to beat me with,
27:46
Speaker 1: but he always allows me to choose which one I want.
27:49
Speaker 1: In the sadistic offering of power to the powerless, asking her,
27:53
Speaker 1: in essence, to procure herself for her father... One can
27:56
Speaker 1: better understand how Ghislaine fell under the spell of a
27:59
Speaker 1: man like Epstein. See, that gives her a way out,
28:02
Speaker 1: and I don't buy it. I really do not buy it. Now,
28:06
Speaker 1: did she have a brutal father? Maybe. I don't know.
28:09
Speaker 1: I wasn't there, and I won't say that he wasn't abusive.
28:12
Speaker 1: I have no idea. Maybe he was. But that's not
28:16
Speaker 1: why Ghislaine Maxwell did what she did. It was all
28:22
Speaker 1: about money and power. If anything, the example her father
28:25
Speaker 1: set about the way he conducted his business and the
28:28
Speaker 1: way he conducted his life, that is the blueprint that
28:31
Speaker 1: Maxwell followed. Prince Andrew was Ghislaine's biggest social catch then.
28:37
Speaker 1: to present to Epstein. He was easy to entertain and satiate. Andrew, Epstein,
28:42
Speaker 1: and Ghislaine became a social trio, the Three Musketeers of Lust,
28:47
Speaker 1: showing up together at Ascot, joining a shoot in Sandringham,
28:51
Speaker 1: and stepping out at the Queen's Dance of the Decades
28:54
Speaker 1: at Windsor Castle in 2000. Andrew insists that Epstein was
28:59
Speaker 1: there only as Ghislaine's plus one, but three months after
29:02
Speaker 1: the Sandringham weekend in March 2001, There they were again,
29:07
Speaker 1: partying together, this time in London. It is the events
29:11
Speaker 1: of that weekend that would seal the Duke of York's
29:14
Speaker 1: destiny of dissent and disappear him altogether into a life
29:19
Speaker 1: of shame. Look, there is no doubt that Prince Andrew
29:24
Speaker 1: was nothing more than a useful idiot to Jeffrey Epstein.
29:28
Speaker 1: Epstein collected people like this, collected people who would be
29:31
Speaker 1: useful to him, and there is no doubt that Prince
29:34
Speaker 1: Andrew certainly was that. All right, folks, that's going to
29:38
Speaker 1: do it for this morning's update. More context, more episodes
29:42
Speaker 1: coming your way, and some other stuff as well. If
29:45
Speaker 1: you'd like to contact me, you can do that at
29:47
Speaker 1: bobbycapucci at protonmail.com. That's B-O-B-B-Y-C-A-P-U-C-C-I at protonmail.com. You can also
29:57
Speaker 1: find me on Twitter at at B-O-B-B-Y underscore C-A-P-U-C-C-I. The
30:03
Speaker 1: link that goes with this episode can be found in
30:06
Speaker 1: the description box.