FBI arrests Prince Andrew confidante Ghislaine Maxwell

Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite and Jeffrey Epstein confidante, has been arrested by the FBI. She was arrested on charges that she conspired with Epstein to sexually abuse minors and is expected to appear in a federal court later today, sources told NBC.

This latest update in the Epstein saga will be of particular concern to Prince Andrew, who was introduced to Epstein by Maxwell, a close friend of his at the time.

Prince Andrew explained his close relationship with Maxwell in the now-infamous Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis :“I met [Epstein] through his girlfriend [Maxwell], back in 1999. And I’d known her since she was in university in the UK,” he said.

The three of them became a close group, with Andrew inviting the pair to Balmoral, Windsor Castle, Ascot, and Sandringham. “It was his girlfriend that was the key element to this, he was the plus one to some extent,” Andrew told Newsnight, attempting to distance himself from Epstein. But his relationship with Maxwell is now proving to be just as concerning.

Virginia Roberts, who has accused Prince Andrew of sexually assaulting her when she was 17 years old, says Maxwell orchestrated the assault. Roberts claims to have spent a night with Andrew, Maxwell and Epstein at the Tramp nightclub in central London.

She told Panorama that when they left the club, Maxwell told her: “We’re going back to the townhouse now, and Andrew’s coming with us.” It was in that townhouse, she claims, that the picture of Andrew with his arm around her body was taken and the sexual assault took place.

Prince Andrew has denied the accusation emphatically. He told Newsnight that he couldn’t have been sweating at the nightclub, as Roberts claimed, because “it was almost impossible for me to sweat” due to an “overdose of adrenaline at the Falklands war when I was shot at.”

There are, however, numerous paparazzi photos of him sweating through his shirt in the same period. He also claimed that he couldn’t have been at the nightclub in any case because he was at a Pizza Express in Woking at the time. These excuses, which have been widely ridiculed, still haunt him.

Last month the United States Department of Justice officially filed a mutual legal assistance (MLA) request to the Home Office for Prince Andrew to be made available for questioning.

Geoffrey Berman, who is leading the investigation into Epstein, told reporters: “Contrary to Prince Andrew’s very public offer to co-operate with our investigation into Epstein’s co-conspirators… Prince Andrew has now completely shut the door on voluntary cooperation and our office is considering its options.”

Whatever Andrew’s legal team thinks of the matter, the arrest of one of the prince’s oldest friends on charges of aiding the sexual abuse of minors will unnerve Buckingham Palace. The dark narrative surrounding his past associations with child abusers has been reinvigorated. The longer it stays in the public mind, the more damaging it becomes for the entire Royal Family.