Beyond Prince Andrew: What the Epstein files reveal about elite power networks

The arrest of former Prince Andrew last week has renewed scrutiny not only of the British royal himself but of the wider elite circle exposed through Jeffrey Epstein's files. 

In 2001, the former prince was photographed alongside Ghislaine Maxwell, now serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, and Virginia Giuffre, who accused Jeffrey Epstein of abuse and was underage at the time. Guiffre took her own life last year.

The image has since become one among several reference points in a wider debate over how Epstein built relationships with prominent figures, which investigators and analysts say helped maintain an elite ecosystem.

Experts argue that the Epstein files expose more than just personal misconduct, revealing a culture within certain elite circles in which social capital and institutional influence can result in legal action being mitigated because of high status and strong connections. 

“It seems that these rich and powerful Western elites thought of themselves as being untouchable by consequences or the law to do something as sick and depraved as they have done,” Gregory Simons, an academic specialising in Eurasian studies, tells TRT World. 

“The expression ‘rules for thee and not for me’ seems to be very fitting to summarise their attitude, they are entirely without moral compass or vulgar and inappropriate impulse control,”

This accountability issue among the elites has been demonstrated through numerous examples throughout world history, and even in recent British royal family history, prior to ex-Prince Andrew, according to experts. 

“The rich and powerful who engage in this kind of sexual exploitation usually have a history of such activities. The greater their elite privileges, the further back this kind of exploitation tends to go,” Dan Steinbock, an economist and expert on international relations, tells TRT World. 

“Lord Mountbatten was the maternal uncle of Prince Andrew’s father, Prince Philip. As a prominent patriarchal mentor, he held a central role within the Royal Family, which is reflected in Andrew’s hyphenated family name, Mountbatten-Windsor. Lord Mountbatten himself has been accused of being a key figure in a paedophile ring linked to the Kincora Boys' Home in East Belfast during the 1970s.”

Kincore Boys’ Home, demolished in 2022, was a boys’ home in Belfast, Northern Ireland, that was the scene of organised child abuse, allegedly involving British intelligence services and the participation of Lord Mountbatten, according to investigative journalists. 

In a recent book, Kincora: Britain’s Shame – Mountbatten, MI5, the Belfast Boys’ Home Sex Abuse Scandal and the British Cover-Up, Chris Moore, an Irish investigative journalist, wrote that Kincora boys were systematically abused, being forced into “a countrywide paedophile ring, whose members included Lord Louis Mountbatten”, according to whistleblowers within the British intelligence services. 

There are also allegations that the late Queen Elizabeth long tolerated her favourite son Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s problematic behaviour before these current revelations emerged, according to critics. 

The late Queen even permitted the ex-Prince to use Buckingham Palace for his disastrous 2019 interview with the BBC, which contributed to his downfall.

Not only sex trafficking

In the modern age, which introduced the rule of law and democratic governance across much of the Western world, many have argued that old privileges of elites - whether they belong to aristocratic or bourgeois circles - have largely disappeared. 

However, the recently revealed Epstein files suggest otherwise, pointing to networks in which some of the world’s wealthy and powerful figures allegedly engaged not only in activities linked to sex trafficking but also in insider trading and the exchange of confidential information to expand influence, power and wealth globally.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who was the UK's trade envoy from 2001 to 2011, has been accused not only of his relationships with a minor and other sex-related crimes but also of his alleged leaking of sensitive state information to Epstein, exploiting his government role. 

“Those ties reflect the increasing collusion of transatlantic political, economic and military elites and their sense of impunity and arrogance,” says Steinbock. 

Beyond Mountbatten-Windsor, who even used taxpayers’ money to cover his "massage services" according to former British civil servants, there are numerous other links between the Jewish American sex offender and prominent elites.

According to the released Epstein files, even after the sex offender was convicted and imprisoned for his sex trafficking activities in 2008, he remained able to broker deals between leading Western elites and government institutions. 

In one case, in late 2015, Epstein was instrumental in mediating a deal between the Edmond de Rothschild Group, a leading Swiss banking group based in Geneva, and the US Justice Department. 

At the time, the Swiss bank owned by the Rothschild dynasty “was in trouble” with the Justice Department because it helped wealthy Americans hide their assets to avoid taxes. 

According to the Epstein files, Ariane de Rothschild, the banking group’s French chief, asked Epstein’s help to settle a deal with Washington. 

The sex offender, with the assistance of Kathy Ruemmler, a former Obama administration official and the current leading legal adviser to Goldman Sachs, who will resign from her position in the summer due to Epstein revelations, settled the $45 million agreement between the Rothschild group and the US Justice Department.  

Epstein and Ruemmler received $35 million from the Swiss banking group, as de Rothschild thanked the sex offender for his help. “Deep thks for your amazing help,” she wrote in an email to him. 

“Epstein’s links with presidents, kings, royal families, billionaires, scientists, different political parties, transatlantic political circles, academia, philanthropy, media and celebrity figures do prove a unified overlapping network structure in the Western elite systems,” says Muzaffer Senel, a visiting scholar of the Department of Politics at Binghamton University.

“This closed network system depends on mutual silence and reputational protection. This also proves the solidarity among elites that hinder the transparency and meritocracy and rule of law claims of liberal democracies,” he tells TRT World.  

How will regular people react? 

Epstein’s notorious links with the world’s elites have widened the existing trust gap between ordinary citizens and political and financial elites, according to experts. 

“The Epstein file revelation has lifted the facade and the illusion of those who control the political and financial assets of their respective countries and likely confirmed a situation that is likely worse than they could have imagined. The result is to drive an even greater wedge and distance between the elites and the people,” Simons says.

“If this does not get people to question the Western system and people 'running' it, I am not sure what could. This may well be another rather heavy nail in the coffin of their credibility and legitimacy while they are already in a crisis of decline,” he adds. 

Long before Epstein's files and revelations, the trust gap between elites and ordinary people had already emerged, fueled by the rising appeal of anti-establishment populist movements across the world, from the US to many European countries, including the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and others.

“Epstein revelations will strengthen people’s sense that something is wrong in their respective political systems, empowering anti-establishment movements across the West and the rest of the world,“ Bulent Guven, a Hamburg-based political analyst, tells TRT World. 

Epstein’s 2008 sex trafficking conviction was not triggered by an FBI investigation or by complaints from those involved coming forward to law enforcement out of guilt. 

Instead, the case began after a mother reported to police that her daughter had been exploited for sex trafficking. In the years that followed, multiple victims — including Virginia Giuffre — came forward with allegations against Epstein and his associates.

Guven says that the absence of an elite moral compass has frustrated ordinary people, who face inflation and other economic challenges every day. 

“Growing economic and social problems can turn the existing systemic crisis into an insurmountable one.” 

Despite the UK investigation into Mountbatten-Windsor, the Trump administration, which rose to power on an anti-establishment popular agenda, says there is not much evidence to support further probes into Epstein's connections. 

“After two to three decades of extensive elite suppression efforts, there is more anger, resentment and outrage. What ordinary Americans should ask is why the Epstein scandal is shaking the rich and the famous in Europe but not many of those in the US yet,” says Steinbock. 

“Time is on the challengers' side. The greater the wealth gap, the greater the protest base for political mobilisation.”