Former Prince gives up gun licence and Trump’s Epstein flights number revealed
Former prince Andrew has given up his gun licence, while separate Epstein investigation documents are shining the spotlight back on the embattled royal and US President Donald Trump.
Source: Fox News
Former prince Andrew has given up his gun licence, while separate documents in the latest tranche from the Epstein investigation have put the spotlight back on the embattled royal and US President Donald Trump.
The Metropolitan Police reportedly visited Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor at his Royal Lodge residence in Windsor last month.
Police would not say why the King’s brother had to give up his shotgun licences. But the change means he can use or transport his guns only if accompanied.
The Sun reported the ex-prince, who was stripped of his titles due to his links to paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, gave up his licence after discussions.
The British tabloid said the specialist police officers spoke to a valet about the situation.
The Sun said part of the decision might be that Mountbatten-Windsor is expected to move to Norfolk in the new year and gun licence holders must inform the authorities about how their weapons will be stored at their new address.
“On Wednesday, November 19, Metropolitan Police firearms licensing officers attended an address in Windsor to request that a man in his 60s voluntarily surrender his firearms and shotgun certificate,” The Metropolitan Police said on Tuesday (British time).
“The certificate was surrendered, and we will be not be commenting any further at this stage.”
It is understood the case will be reviewed and Mountbatten-Windsor will be informed of the outcome.
It is also understood that by voluntarily surrendering his firearms certificate, the former duke will still have supervised access to his guns.
Meanwhile, the US Department of Justice has released its largest drop of files to date relating to the Epstein investigation.
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The BBC reported they included a 2001 email sent by “A” from “Balmoral” to Epstein’s associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.
The email asks Maxwell “have you found me some new inappropriate friends?”. It was sent from an address using the alias “The Invisible Man” – a pen name that was also used alongside a separate email address listed in Epstein’s phone book as “Duke of York”.
The email does not indicate any wrongdoing.
An undated photo released by the US Department of Justice this week showed Epstein, his disgraced lover Ghislaine Maxwell and the then Duke of York, holding a shotgun, in shooting gear on a moor, believed to be Balmoral.
In his infamous Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis, the former prince denied throwing a birthday party for Maxwell at Sandringham, insisting it was “a straightforward shooting weekend”.
He was photographed in 1986 taking part in Jackie Stewart’s Celebrity Challenge clay pigeon shoot, competing for the royal team.
Trump’s eight flights with Epstein
Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet “many more times than previously has been reported”, according to an email from a New York prosecutor that forms part of a new batch of documents about the paedophile sex offender released by the US Justice Department.
In an email dated January 7, 2020, the unidentified prosecutor wrote that flight records showed Trump had flown on Epstein’s private jet eight times during the 1990s.
Among those were at least four flights on which Maxwell was also aboard.
Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence for helping late financier Epstein sexually abuse underage girls.
In a social media post in 2024, Trump said he “was never on Epstein’s Plane, or at his ‘stupid’ Island”.
There was no allegation in the prosecutor’s email that Trump had committed any crime.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On one flight described in the newly released records, the only three passengers were Epstein, Trump and a 20-year-old woman whose name was redacted.
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“On two other flights, two of the passengers, respectively, were women who would be possible witnesses in a Maxwell case,” the document stated.
Trump knew Epstein socially in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Trump has said their association ended in the mid-2000s and that he was never aware of the financier’s sexual abuse.
Epstein was convicted in Florida in 2008 of procuring a person under the age of 18 for prostitution.
The US Justice Department charged him with sex trafficking in 2019.
“Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election. To be clear: The claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponised against President Trump already,” it posted on X.
“Nevertheless, out of our commitment to the law and transparency, the DOJ is releasing these documents with the legally required protections for Epstein’s victims.”
The latest release of Epstein files includes about 30,000 pages of documents, with many redactions, and dozens of video clips, including several purporting to be shot inside a federal detention centre.
Epstein was found dead in 2019 in a New York jail. His death was ruled a suicide.
In another email, an unidentified person wrote in 2021 that they had looked through data obtained from former Trump aide Steve Bannon’s mobile phone and found an “image of Trump and Ghislaine Maxwell”.
The government redacted parts of the message indicating who sent and received it.
Another file in the government’s release included a grainy photo of Trump seated next to Maxwell. It matches an image of the two at a New York fashion show in 2000.
The disclosures included a scattering of other records that reference Trump, though they give little indication that the government considered them to be credible.
On Monday, Trump downplayed the importance of the Epstein files.
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-with AAP
