The big Epstein lesson: impunity today may not mean impunity tomorrow

English original of article published this morning in Italian by La Stampa. Next, I will send a special piece about the Supreme Court’s sanity over Trump’s “emergency” tariffs

For Jeffrey Epstein to bring shame and disgrace to so many people, across several continents, is quite an achievement, nearly seven years after his death in a prison cell. The main thing we have learned from the release by the American Department of Justice of millions of documents related to Epstein is not about the sex crimes that put him in that prison and led to his presumed suicide, nor about rich men’s liking for orgies or for wealth, but rather that people enjoying positions of power and status often act with a sense of impunity, abusing their power on the assumption that they will never be punished. This is not surprising, but it is nonetheless shocking to see how flagrant that disregard for the law can be.

There is, however, a glimmer of hope in all this sleaze and scandal. It is that thanks to the Epstein files and their consequences, some people currently in powerful positions in the Trump administration, notably in that same American Justice Department and in the anti-immigration militia, ICE, who are currently breaking laws on behalf of their boss may be beginning to realise that impunity today may not mean impunity tomorrow.

If this makes them think a little harder before their next attempted prosecution of a political opponent, before they next shoot a protestor dead or seek ways to manipulate elections or control the media, or before they copy Trump and his family by adding billions to their own bank accounts, the ghost of Epstein and his sins will have done some good.

That sense of impunity for the powerful and privileged explains why Andrew, reputedly the favourite son of the late Queen Elizabeth, has lost his royal titles and was arrested this week by British police on his 66th birthday but the US Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, remains in his job. This is even though both have been shown by the Epstein files to have lied about their association with him after he had been convicted for sex crimes in 2008.

To be fair to Lutnick he was not at that time in public office (he was running a Wall Street firm, Cantor Fitzgerald) and has not been accused of breaking any laws. In any case, lying is a normal, daily practice in the Trump administration so to have been proven to have done so cannot count as a disqualification.

Britain’s King Charles has already decided that lying about contacts with a convicted sex offender does count as a disqualification for any official role in the country’s monarchy, which is why last year he downgraded his younger brother from the title of Prince Andrew, Duke of York to plain Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. The reason why on February 19th the former prince became the first senior member of a British royal family to be arrested since 1647 is that the Epstein files have suggested that Andrew passed sensitive, confidential information to Epstein while he was employed by the government as the UK’s Special Representative for Trade and Investment from 2001-11. Under British law, this would count as an illegal abuse of public office.

This is embarrassing for King Charles and the royal family, but is unlikely to undermine the institution in a serious way. Andrew has always been seen by the public as a badly behaved, rather arrogant prince and had been notorious for his lavish spending and seemingly purposeless travel during his decade as the UK’s trade envoy. The new revelations do not add much to that already bad reputation.

King Charles and his future heir, Prince William, will find it awkward if more information becomes public about how much of the royal family’s money has been used to support Andrew during legal cases against him over the Epstein affair, but this would be unlikely to have any lasting impact on their popularity. In fact, if Andrew does end up being charged and convicted for abuse in public office this will probably count in the royal family’s favour. On hearing of his brother’s arrest King Charles said publicly that “the law must take its course”.

As long as he sticks to that very principled and proper position, the Epstein case will not harm the monarchy in any serious way. There is little public pressure to slim the British monarchy down in the style of the Dutch and Scandinavian monarchies. Perhaps surprisingly, the fact that the British royal family receives a huge income from two large publicly owned property companies, the Duchy of Cornwall and the Duchy of Lancaster, both of which have their origins in feudal times 700 years ago, has never been particularly controversial. So there is little reason to think that Andrew’s alleged misconduct will change things.

The bigger question arising from the Epstein case concerns whether the revelations will damage the electoral prospects of Trump’s Republican Party in the mid-term congressional elections in November, or even in the presidential contest in 2028. So far, no new disclosures have altered Trump’s own reputation. Next week, President Bill Clinton and his wife Hilary Clinton will both testify to Congress about Epstein, showing that involvement in Epstein’s world was bipartisan in nature.

Nonetheless, despite the mud of Epstein being splattered all over Bill Clinton and other people associated with the Democrats, including the former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and the Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, there is a chance that Democratic candidates will be able to exploit Epstein. By attacking what some are already calling “the Epstein Class”, Democrats may be able to highlight the abuse of power and privilege by Trump and the Republicans around him, without having to accuse him directly of corruption. This will be made easier by the fact that Trump and his circle boast so openly about the money they are making and all the gold decor they are installing at the White House and elsewhere.

Certainly, by November it will already be well beyond the time when Trump and the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement will credibly be able to claim to be anti-elitist. With every addition of Trump’s name to public institutions, his self-glorification will have become more obvious. This personality cult may convince some supporters, but is likely to alienate many others, especially along with the obvious enrichment of him and his family. If just some of his loyalists in the Justice Department and other parts of government also start to worry about the future legal trouble they could be getting themselves into, the tide could start to turn. If so, the late and unlamented Jeffrey Epstein will have played a part in that process.