Martin Jay
There's nothing quite like a British royal to thicken the plot of what is already looking like a movie and a score of investigative books on the way. But 'Epstein the movie' is a fascinating story and made even more so with the recent TV interview by Prince Andrew who believed he could fool the camera and invent a string of lies to worm his way out of culpability with the convicted sex offender and paedophile.
Prince Andrew's awful performance has sealed his fate in England after the Queen stripped him of his role and his privileges - as well as his daughters - in a brazen move to protect the image of the royal household which is unprecedented and has been compared to Edward VIII's abducted in 1936 in its significance.
That was also about an American scandal.
But what is really the core of the Epstein story? Is it simply that he was a brilliant impresario and made money out of befriending powerful people? Perhaps in America, many could believe that a humble school teacher could climb up the class system so quickly.
The reality though is darker, which is why Prince Andrew's failed interview is now stirring more curiosity from the media (which largely hates him in the UK) and, one would hope, FBI investigators.
Mossad hitman
How does Prince Andrew justify flying the Atlantic and staying with Epstein for four days merely to let him know that he is breaking off their friendship, when surely a polite letter would do? How is it that on one hand Prince Andrew insists that Epstein was not a close friend and yet stayed at his properties and flew on his private jets on so many occasions?
The answer is that the disgraced royal is telling part of the truth.
Prince Andrew many well not have been good friends with Epstein but was drawn to him due to his ability to connect the British royal instantly with both powerful business people and celebrities - plus also beautiful young women, who, until then kept their mouths shut due to the 'special relationship' that Epstein and his 'girlfriend' had with them. Prince Andrew enjoyed the high life, the power and the sex. Probably he is telling the truth when he says the Epstein was not a great friend and that all along he was taking advice from Jewish socialite Ghislaine Maxwell - Robert Maxwell's daughter who is almost certainly a Mossad asset. Her father, the disgraced media tycoon who it is believed committed suicide in November 1991 after it was discovered that he had stolen 460m pounds from his own employees pension fund was, undeniably, a Mossad agent, who some have speculated was murdered by the Israeli intelligence agency for simply getting too big for his own boots and becoming a liability.
Far-fetched? Perhaps. But even less far-fetched is the Mossad connection to the Epstein scandal. Was Epstein luring the rich and famous into his hedonistic domain so he could play a subtle but effective game of blackmail with them? Or simply to extract information from them? They quickly pumped money into his financial outfit and made him rich. But was there more to it than what meets the eye?
With Epstein you either gave him heaps of cash. Or information. Both were valuable commodities to be traded and exploited. Yet any investigative hack will tell you that whenever you come across paedophilia, blackmail is always close by. In fact, the two go hand-in-hand and when you consider the connection between Maxwell's daughter and Epstein - who accrued wealth so quickly - one has to ask whether Epstein's entire organisation was entirely a Mossad operation. How did Epstein attract such high net worth individuals and then keep them?
The case of Prince Andrew is alarming as it was Ghislaine Maxwell who is the key figure. Was she genuinely advising the royal to invite Epstein to his daughter's birthday party in the UK in 2006 - despite an arrest warrant already issued for having unlawful sex with a minor - or was she trying to build a case in support of her former lover Epstein?
What is clear is that Andrew was being blackmailed, whether he knew it or not. Epstein and Maxwell had something on him, which is why he flew to Epstein's New York residence in 2010, with even more paedophile charges looming against the American hedge fund manager, to talk to Epstein. He went there to make sure that it was a gentle landing and not a bump in the hope that Epstein would respect the discretion the Prince needed to continue in public life with all its privileges.
By that time, probably Epstein kept all his victims of sex trafficking - like Virginia Roberts - in check. Can we assume that Prince Andrew needed to talk in depth with Epstein to seek his assurances that his secrets would remain just that? Did Prince Andrew offer him any help, away from the cameras, in exchange?
Prince Andrew is probably telling the truth about deciding to visit Epstein to tell him that he couldn't see him again. And he is probably telling the truth about Epstein not being a close friend. Unlike the smear campaign against Trump, where media easily finds and publishes video footage or photos of the US president and Epstein having a good laugh together and appearing as friends, there are no photographs of the British Prince and Epstein together enjoying each other's company; no signs of tactile affection. But there are photos as back as 2000 which show Andrew in the company of Donald Trump and Epstein just a few feet away.
The walk in the park hardly shows any body language that they were good friends but more business associates. They both served one another's purposes, clearly. But there however too many photographs on the internet of Andrew and loose women to counter his claims that he is not the partying type. (Is this the same Prince Andrew who for decades was known as 'Randy Andy' by the UK tabloids?)
Honey Trap Toppings
Prince Andrew is not particularly bright, as is patently obvious in the TV interview. He does have though a weakness that any intelligence agency would seek to exploit.
Was Virginia Roberts part of a honey trap operation? Was Epstein working Andrew so as to introduced to other important royals both in the UK and in the Middle East?
Although Prince Andrew's interview is peppered with obvious lies, it is more noted for its truths. Again, many would like to believe him when he says he can't remember the infamous photo of himself and Roberts (then only 17) being taken in London. Perhaps this is true. It would explain why or how he failed to dismiss it in the interview as a fake photo, mocked up in Photoshop. Or is it that he remembers but can't admit it as the opprobrium from the UK press - if not his own household - be too much to cope with? A British royal, known for being weak with women, now linked to a 17 year old girl who has clasped herself around him as her latest catch. And that same girl procured by Epstein, who, in 2001 had avoided any scandal but whom surely must have been known for his obsession with very young girls.
Blackmail and paedophilia are always found together.
There is little question that Roberts was a sex slave entrapped by Epstein, along with many others. The only real question is whether she was procured by Maxwell and Epstein for other purposes than merely pleasing Prince Andrew.
The problem now is that Prince Andrew has told too many lies on camera, which even third rate journalist can follow up on and check. And already these lies are being identified. Another visit to New York where he claims to have not stayed with Epstein (perhaps later in 2011) but stayed at the British Consulate have been denied by the top diplomat there. His vague memory about Epstein's private island which came complete with young Russian girls who performed foot massages on the Prince will all come out in the wash soon, either via the fourth estate or an FBI probe. Similarly, Roberts' claim that they both had sex in 2001, shortly after dancing at Tramps nightclub in London, won't be too hard to stand up, following Andrew's lame pizza alibi. What were the toppings?
The photograph, which Andrew says is a "photograph of a photograph of a photograph" might haunt him for the rest of his life as the only explanation which is viable at this juncture is that it is in fact genuine and was taken upstairs at Ghislaine Maxwell's Belgravia house, where Epstein himself is alleged to have taken the photo himself with Roberts' Kodak. Classic Honey trap which could have come out of the Mi6 agents manual but was almost certainly from Mossad's. Andrew, typically for a British royal was a bit dim, if not naive to the wicked ways of the world and simply was blinded by the lights in his eyes. Before he could even think about what was going on, that single frame had been captured and he, like a retarded carp, had been netted.
Perhaps it is the rank stupidity which is embarrassing him now which cannot let him admit that he obliged his captors with the photo op. It's just too embarrassing to admit you've been such a chump as to fall into such a ruse, as it compounds a cliché that he, like many royals, are out of touch with the real world and are deluded about themselves. They think they are above it all. The honey trap though will be the equivalent of Mossad assassinating Maxwell senior or, as many believe, Epstein in jail. Epstein was no fool though. He probably had a fallback plan to ensure that his demise could be managed, even quashed as the evidence that he took his own life looks opaque at best. And the hanging. Yet another CIA/Mossad/MI6 textbook tactic whereby the strangulation marks can be confused with those made by the noose by a third rate autopsy.