Prince Andrew Has Been Arrested

Prince Andrew has been arrested. Will you send that headline back in time 40 years? No one in Britain would believe it. Forget headlines about Donald Trump becoming president or Jimmy Savile turning out to be. Should we say a less than outstanding citizen? If you wanted to blow the minds of my parents' generation from oh so far in the future, it would be news of Andrew's arrest that would do it.

For those of you watching this from America who mostly know the Andrew, formerly known as Prince, as a creepy, semi-comical character in the Epstein saga, this might seem absurd. Just a few short decades ago, he was a legend in Britain. A prince who'd seen active duty in the Falklands. A playboy who seemed far more fun than his stuffy brother Charles. Well, yesterday, that playboy lifestyle may have finally caught up with him.

On February the 19th, the day of his 66th birthday, the one-time royal was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. At time of writing, police have yet to confirm the precise reason, but have said that it relates to the sharing of sensitive documents with Jeffrey Epstein. But while it may be white collar crime that's on the charge list, the truth is that this may be the first step in a much wider reckoning for the world's elite. An elite that indulged and enabled the most notorious sex criminal in recent history. Decline and a fall.

Now look, if you're British and alive in the 2020s, in which case, join the club. They've no doubt gotten used to living through a series of historic firsts. Boris becoming the first sitting prime minister to be fined by the police over his COVID parties. Liz Truss becoming the first prime minister to be outlasted by a lettuce. But perhaps nothing else has been as truly historic as what happened yesterday. For the first time in the modern era, a member of the royal family was arrested. And to be extremely clear, by modern era, we don't mean in the 21st century or even since the industrial revolution. Journalist Martin Plau claimed on X that the last time a royal was arrested, it was Charles I in 1647 during the English Civil War. And while we don't expect Andrew to suffer the same fate of being beheaded by angry parliamentarians, that should give you some idea of what a momentous event this was.

And yet, in some ways, it was also very ordinary. There were no fireworks, no sense yesterday morning that something deeply important was underway. Instead, from the outside, it looks like the arrest of any disgraced businessman or politician. At 8:00 a.m., patrol cars pulled up at the vast Sandringham estate in Norfolk, and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was taken into custody. Nor were the charges as lurid as you might expect from a close Epstein associate. While US viewers who know him for his role in the Virginia Giuffre saga might expect that the arrest was due to the multiple accusations of abuse Chuay has leveled, the actual crime appears to have been related to the sharing of confidential documents. Here's how the New York Times helpfully sum things up: "A tranche of documents released by the US Department of Justice on January 30th included a number of emails that suggested Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor may have shared confidential documents when working as a British trade envoy."

But if the actual specifics of Andrew's arrest were pretty low-key, the implications definitely were not. The entire Epstein case involves the world's ultra-rich and powerful acting as if the laws don't apply to them, as if their money and connections would always shield them. For the first time, we may now be witnessing a member of that narrow elite suffer real consequences.

And speaking of which, time for a few caveats. Britain has some pretty strong laws regarding what the media can and can't say during an active investigation. And while this channel is based outside the UK, I am a British citizen who would quite like to be able to visit home every now and again without being arrested. On the other hand, who am I kidding? If I went back to the UK and got arrested for talking about Prince Andrew, that'd be YouTube gold. I'll take the hit. But all the same, it is important to note at this stage there are a lot of unknowns, including the precise nature of the charges and whether the police have access to additional communications not in the Epstein files. We should also stress that Andrew has consistently and strenuously denied all wrongdoing.

With that being said, it's hard to ignore the fact that something does seem to be shifting in the cultural landscape, doesn't it? A sense that it may no longer be possible for the Epstein elite to carry on as they did before. In Britain, former US ambassador and longtime Labour Party fixer Peter Mandelson is under active investigation for potentially passing sensitive information on to Epstein. In this case, relating to advanced notice he gave the financier of a massive European bailout. While he hasn't been arrested or charged, the scandal is already consuming the government. Across Europe more generally, the list of investigations is also growing. Norway has charged a former prime minister and seen the reputation of its own royal family shredded. France has opened multiple lines of inquiry, including into former ministers. Poland has set up a special board to investigate links between Polish citizens and the dead financier. The list goes on and on. A lot of documents.

Or at least in most countries it does, because in the United States, the justice system so far seems reluctant to get involved. Despite some household names popping up in the Epstein files and despite testimony and unreleased FBI documents that apparently name the men involved in abusing Epstein's victims, the number of people under active investigation remains well zero. We'll circle back around to that a little bit later. For now though, we want to keep the focus on what went down in Britain.

As of Friday morning, Andrew has been released, but remains under investigation. In the British system, that means charges can still be brought, and there's no time limit on when prosecutors can decide to move forward with a case. Yet, while this is all coming to a head now, the Andrew arrest didn't just blow up out of nowhere. Rather, it's the climax of a story that's been decades in the making. One that took place largely on private estates and in swanky townhouses out of the public eye. A story in which one of the most powerful men in Britain is alleged to have committed serious crimes.

Anatomy of a crime. While much of the relationship between Andrew and Epstein remains murky, what's not beyond doubt is the moment the former royal torched his reputation. And that would be the 16th of November 2019. That's the day BBC's Newsnight program aired its interview with the then Prince, an interview for which phrases like "infamous," "toe-curling," and "what the..." were surely coined. In a surreal discussion with Emily Maitlis, Andrew claimed his wartime experience in the Falklands meant he couldn't sweat and insisted he couldn't have met Virginia Giuffre because that night he was at Pizza Express in Woking. I forgot that. And American viewers will just have to trust me. The Pizza Express in Woking line was weirdly, darkly comical to Brits. We asked ChatGPT what a US equivalent might be. And it told me that Americans should imagine Andrew claimed he was, quote, "at a TGI Fridays in Newark, New Jersey." I have no idea if that makes sense to you guys. Let me know in the comments if not. But the point is that while the content of the interview was comic, what it implied—that Andrew was lying—was anything but.

You probably remember at least some of the fallout. It was in the wake of the Newsnight interview that Virginia Giuffre decided to press ahead with her civil case against Andrew, a case that was ultimately settled out of court in 2022 for several million dollars. And it was the fallout from that legal case that led Andrew to disappear from public life. Yet, for all of these serious allegations against him, there was never any sense that the state itself might pursue the former royal. When a protester yelled, "Andrew, you're a sick old man!" during the Queen's funeral procession, it was the protester who wound up being arrested. That this ever changed at all was thanks to a steady drip, drip, drip of revelations from the Epstein files. As more evidence surfaced of ongoing links between the prince and the pedophile, public opinion began to turn firmly against him. One poll last year put the numbers of Brits who had a positive opinion of Andrew at just 4%. Who are those 4%? By way of a comparison, a full 8% of Brits have a positive opinion of Kim Jong-un. Who are those 8%? More importantly, who are those 4%?

By autumn of 2025, enough information had come out that Andrew had lost his title, had been kicked out of his mansion, Royal Lodge. But it was the release of files earlier this year that seemed to have sealed his fate. Prior to this one, the one compromising photo we had of Andrew was the infamous snap of him with one arm around Virginia Giuffre, taken while she was 17. A photo Andrew always claimed was doctored, but which Ghislaine Maxwell seemed to confirm as real in Epstein emails released late last year. Now we have an additional photo of a drunken, flabby-looking Andrew crouching on all fours over a young woman with a redacted face. Nothing sexual is happening, but the image looks both tawdry and sleazy. It's kind of like watching your creepy uncle latch over a bridesmaid at a wedding.

Of course, this image is notable only for its effect on public opinion, unless a shock statement is made by police later today. The crime Andrew stands accused of is not being a creep, but rather serious misconduct in public office. The charges appear to relate to his time as the UK's special representative for international trade and investment between 2001 and 2011. Even before the Epstein stuff, there was a whiff of scandal around these years, with Andrew accused of using the taxpayer-funded role as an excuse to travel around the world getting drunk in exciting new locations. But the latest release of Epstein emails suggest he also broke the law. As a trade envoy, he would have been expected to keep his discussions confidential. Instead, he seems to have forwarded reports to Epstein, including confidential briefings about investment opportunities in Afghanistan.

And if all of that sounds relatively small potatoes, you should know that the charge of misconduct in public office carries a potential life sentence. However, it's also an offense that's notoriously difficult to prosecute. The Times of London ran a helpful piece detailing all the potential legal hurdles. Because of Britain's weird, Harry Potter-esque legal system, misconduct in public office is not on the statute books, but instead flows from decades of precedent. That vagueness means that it can be hard to prosecute. It also requires the Crown Prosecution Service to prove that Andrew either knowingly committed wrongdoing or else was so indifferent to what was right or wrong that it amounts to reckless indifference. Finally, the paper notes, quoting, "The conduct must be deemed to have been so far below acceptable standards as to amount to an abuse of the public's trust in the office holder. It could be difficult to persuade juries on that point."

Now look, amidst all the breathlessness of the last 24 hours, then consider this a bit of a reality check. A cold bucket of legal reality poured onto the hopes of those who want to see Andrew behind bars. While Andrew remains under investigation and may yet be charged, the reality is that securing a successful prosecution remains extremely difficult. Unless there are other more damning communications between Andrew and Epstein that are later released, the likelihood of the former prince ever appearing in court still remains really low. That's not to say it won't happen, just that the odds currently appear against it.

Yet, even if the story ends now, even if the police drop their investigation and Andrew slinks back into the shadows, forever a free, or be it, disgraced man, the damage has already been done. A reputation that was already in tatters has now been torn down, stamped into the [ __ ] mud, and then someone took a [ __ ] on it. So much so that it's hard to believe that 4% approval rating won't fall even lower. Honestly, at this point, I just don't think there's anyone changing those 4% of people's minds and the 8% of people who like Kim Jong-un. Jesus, who are you?

But we don't want to end this episode talking about Andrew or even the monarchy. Because while most takes are focused on what this means for the royal family or Britain more generally, we want to zoom way out now, way beyond this one rainy island, and ask what next for the entire Epstein elite. A reckoning.

Despite all the fallout from the Epstein files these past few months, what's been striking is how little accountability there has been in the nation where the scandal originated, the United States of America. That's not to say there's been no impact. Powerful people have resigned from high-ranking positions. Academics have been disgraced. A whole lot of media types have been publicly embarrassed. But there's been nothing like what we've seen in Britain these last 24 hours. No images of police cars pulling up outside the homes of powerful Americans. No announcement of criminal charges against the great and the good. In fact, if anything, it's been more of the opposite. In released documents, the names of powerful men have been redacted, while the names and faces of some of their young female victims have been visible for all to see. And while releasing the identities of these victims was clearly a mistake, it does say a lot about the priorities of the Justice Department.

And look, this isn't an original point we're making. Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie have hinted there's some sort of cover-up, with Khanna naming men like head of DP Ports Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem who were originally redacted in the files. But the fact we're not alone in saying this doesn't make it any less true. Something in the region of 2 million pages remain unreleased by the DOJ. Other files thought to be held by the CIA are not even required by the Transparency Act to be released. Yet, the government seems determined to pretend there's nothing more to see here. Attorney General Pam Bondi notoriously responded to questioning by the House with the declaration, "The Dow is over 50,000 right now, the S&P at almost 7,000, and the NASDAQ smashing records. Americans' 401ks and retirements are booming. That's what we should be talking about."

If there's a greater metaphor for the entire Epstein saga than the government insisting money is more important than the trafficking and abuse of thousands of women and girls, then we've yet to hear it. Babes, seen in this light, then the story of Andrew is just one chapter in a vast book of abuse. A grim and depressing chapter. Certainly one that may end with some form of justice, but still nothing more than a single story among many, many more that seem likely to end without any form of accountability. And that really is where the world is right now. We know there are rich and powerful men in those files. We know that some of them have been accused of doing stuff ranging from the morally dubious to the outright illegal. And yet there seems to have been an unspoken agreement, somewhere, to try and protect these men, to give them immunity from consequences that they've long believed they're entitled to. The fallen arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor may be shocking, but what should be far more shocking is the hundreds of other rich, connected abusers who are still walking around free. Thank you for watching.