oligarchs, corrupt presidents of

1TTERSON oligarchs, corrupt presidents of (wammar Gadhafi, among other _ were explored in a Vanity Fair TH ANDREW. zing loyal to his friends,” a “royal ard Klein. “Take his feelings for ince and you bring a woman into reasons, she’s spit out, you might er. The duke feels that she’s been se relationship with the Duchess re have been many problems over tich stem from the duchess. Some s is inconsistent with being mar uke. There’s no question but that destructive element in the-duke's + manifested itself last December, © { 1 at his home in New York,” said a } n Palace. “Epstein was a friend nm q f 20 years. It was the first time in stein. He now recognizes that thes wise.” say. t the prince's dealings with Jeffrey >in’s town house, the prince dish of nephew Prince William to 54 e so Ink ha ; dinner companions wer 1oto of the two of them together | . y! Firtuy Ricu ested in every detail,” a guest in attendance told a New York Post gossip columnist. “What would Kate wear, what would the Queen wear, would his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson be invited?” Other guests in attendance that night included Chelsea Han- dler, George Stephanopoulos, Charlie Rose, Katie Couric, and Woody Allen. At around the same time, Jeffrey Epstein told the New York Post, “I’m not a sexual predator, I’m an ‘offender: It’s the differ- ence between a murderer and a person who steals a bagel.” Was it so remarkable that Prince Andrew would have been seen in Epstein’s company? Andrew’s philandering had been tabloid - fodder for years. Randy Andy, they called him in the UK. And in the circles that Jeffrey Epstein moved in, philandering wasn’t seen as a vice. Epstein came of age just as industrywide deregu- lation took hold on Wall Street. Junk bonds were king. Call girls were charging ten thousand dollars a night. And in the shadows, you'd see things that would have made Caligula blush. Sights | that would make Nero himself reach for the nearest fire extin- | guisher. When the urge presented itself, the new super rich didn’t have to swap wives. They could simply swap harems. By the same token, was it so very strange to think that a man ike the prince would have grown so detached from reality— insofar as reality is even a word that applies to a prince? Was it 0 Odd that he thought it was absolutely fine to be seen by photog- Te Taphers strolling through Central Park with a registered sex etter —when at the time large swaths of the financial, bank- mg, and trading industries were characterized by their very 225 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_022032