zaterdag 27 december 2025

How an ex-US Marine became vital in the fight against Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement

When Trump began deploying troops to US cities, Janessa Goldbeck’s Vet Voice Foundation was ready – now they’re preparing for what may be next

Whatever the worst case scenario, Janessa Goldbeck has probably imagined it. In 2023 the US Marine veteran consulted on a documentary that war-gamed a presidential candidate staging a military coup. Last year she advised local leaders on the hypothetical of troops being deployed to their streets for immigration enforcement.

Then Donald Trump won and Goldbeck’s nightmare came true.

“It’s a little surreal to see something that we’ve been talking about and thinking about and stressing out about,” the chief executive of Vet Voice Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy organisation, says via Zoom from her home in San Diego, California. “When we first did War Game, the film, some folks would ask during our press tour, ‘Do you think you’re scaring people? This feels a little hyperbolic?’ It doesn’t feel good to say I told you so in this moment.”

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has sought to politicise the military like no other commander-in-chief before him and use it as a cudgel against Democratic-led states and cities. He has deployed thousands of national guard troops to Chicago, Los Angeles, Memphis, New Orleans and Washington DC, triggering protests from local officials and residents.

Having read the Project 2025 policy document, Goldbeck saw this coming. Last year Vet Voice Foundation, which mobilises veterans and military families to defend US democracy, ran exercises with local elected officials, activists and journalists to prepare for a second Trump administration conducting aggressive immigration enforcement. It has now become a vital resource for governors, state attorneys general and mayors trying to weather the storm.

Goldbeck, 40, explains: “This year the vast majority of our work has been supporting litigation to halt or slow down national guard deployments, providing subject expert witnesses, retired generals, to talk through with staff what the footprint of these deployments might look like and how to prepare, and training for activist groups on who the guard is, who they’re not – the difference in the uniforms that the guys at ICE are wearing versus the national guard.

“Then serving as advisers for governors and mayors who are living day to day through this, helping them shape their communications and ensure that things don’t become more violent. That’s been a huge line of effort for us.”

a group of people in front of white buildings — Janessa Goldbeck speaks in front of the Capitol. Photograph: Courtesy Vet Voice Foundation

It would be a mistake to assume that all national guard members are Make America Great Again (Maga) diehards eager to do Trump’s bidding. In every city except the capital, their role has eventually been restricted by courts to guarding federal property. Some have told Goldbeck that it is tedious and unfulfilling work.

“There’s a wide range of feelings for the folks I’ve spoken to, ranging from boredom – this is a waste of time – to anger because they’ve been taken away from their families and their jobs. Most guardsmen make more in their civilian jobs than they do when they’re deployed but they signed up to serve their communities, to either serve overseas to protect the homeland or to respond in cases of a natural disaster.

“They did not sign up to be ICE – immigration enforcement – and they did not sign up to police their friends and neighbours or to be deployed into ‘hostile territory’ where the governors, local police have said actually, we do not want you here.”

Last month, two West Virginia national guard members were shot in a targeted ambush near the White House by Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who had previously worked with the CIA in Afghanistan and arrived in the US in 2021. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died from her injuries, while 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe survived and has been released from hospital.

Goldbeck comments: “After the horrific killing of the guardswoman in DC, there’s the question of: is the president putting these folks in danger unnecessarily? The answer to that, I believe, is absolutely yes, especially when they’re not necessarily trained for the mission they’re being asked to execute. But also they’re targets of opportunity for any madman who wants to create chaos or has a vendetta or a mental health crisis or whatever it is.”

Then there is embarrassment. In Washington the national guard have been seen picking up litter, helping commuters with luggage and feeding squirrels. Goldbeck continues: “I spoke to one mother of a guardsman in DC who said she’d had a phone call with him and he said, ‘Mom, they’re calling us the national gardeners on the internet,’ because they’re out there picking up trash. This is a combat vet who was a law enforcement official in his real life.

“That’s humiliating to our service members. It just goes to show how deep this president’s disdain is for people who serve in uniform and how little he understands about the actual ethos of the military and what it’s there to do.”

The deployments come in broader context that has seen Trump expand presidential power. He has sought to sideline Congress, gut the civil service, flout the law, weaponise the justice department against his perceived enemies and coerce law firms, media and universities. Goldbeck warns that he could use the military to cling to power.

“I hope that people have learned that this administration, this president, mean what they say, even it if sounds absurd or anti-American or anti-democratic. They mean it. I absolutely think that this president wants to remain in power much longer, for as long as he can.”

She adds: “My fear is that this is all a lead-up to potential use of the guard or the US military around the next election cycle. I’m not just dreaming about that. It’s because it’s been spoken about by very senior members of this administration and the president himself. That is incredibly alarming. It is not American to conduct elections with troops in the streets and to intimidate voters. It’s very authoritarian.”

Goldbeck’s own story is testimony to the diverse, non-monolithic nature of the military. She was raised in San Diego by parents she describes as “children of the ‘60s and ‘70s” who were “vegetarian pacifist Hindus”. Her mother was an elementary school teacher and her father drove a tow truck.

She attended Northwestern University, studying journalism and African studies. A study abroad programme in Uganda and Rwanda educated her on the unfolding genocide in Darfur, Sudan, sparking her passion for activism. Returning to the US, she became the national student leader of a movement to compel the government to protect civilians in Darfur.

Goldbeck’s activism in Washington brought her into contact with military and security personnel. She observed a disconnect between humanitarian workers and the security forces that enable their operations. To bridge this gap and gain a “master’s degree, so to speak, in military”, she decided to join the Marine Corps at age 25.

two people talking on a bench in the sunlight — Janessa Goldbeck. Photograph: Courtesy Vet Voice Foundation

This decision was a shock to her family. When she told her parents she was joining the Marine Corps, they were “horrified” and said: “These are not the values we raised you with.” This was the opposite of their reaction when she came out as gay, to which they responded, “We love you no matter what.” But over time, her parents came to take pride in her service.

Goldbeck commissioned as a Marine Corps officer in 2012 and served for seven years as a combat engineer officer — a role she defines as someone who “builds things and blows things up” – while advocating for fellow female and LGBTQ service members. She spent years in Europe training US-allied countries but her final duty station brought her back home to oversee the integration of the west coast bootcamp to include both male and female candidates.

Goldbeck left the Marine Corps in 2019 for two primary reasons: her mother becoming seriously ill and the election of Trump. She felt she could not remain silent in uniform and “wanted to be involved in pushing back” against what she saw happening to the country.

A few weeks after leaving the service, her local member of Congress retired, and Goldbeck was recruited to run for the seat. Although she did not win, the experience led to an offer to lead the Vet Voice Foundation, which represents around 2m veterans, military family members, and supporters.

The foundation has been heavily involved in protecting public lands, citing a deep connection between veterans and the outdoors for healing and reconnecting with family. Following the supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, the foundation has advocated to ensure that female service members stationed in states with restrictive abortion laws could travel to get necessary medical care.

Earlier this year Goldbeck testified to a Senate forum that the justice department is laying the groundwork for voter roll purges that disproportionately target groups including servicemen and women who move frequently or vote absentee. She noted that more than 30% of veterans have a service-connected disability and for many in-person voting is not feasible.

Joining all the dots, she is concerned that the military’s status as an apolitical institution is under threat from Trump. She says: “This administration is doing harm to the world and to the nation in a lot of different ways but one of my chief concerns is about this generational harm that it’s doing to the professionalism and the apolitical nature of the military.”

In this, she argues, Trump is being aided and abetted by Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defence. In a recent speech to senior officers at a military base in Quantico, Virginia, Hegseth railed against “woke” culture, railed against “fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon” and insisted: “No more beardos.”

Goldbeck responds: “Pete Hegseth is unequivocally the least qualified person who ever led the department of defense.”

Hegseth has also gone on the record with the opinion: “I’m straight up saying we should not have women in combat roles”. This is anathema to Goldbeck, who put herself forward for infantry officer training, a position then closed to female Marines, and later worked with advocacy groups to successfully repeal the policy. She states that in the decade since women have served successfully and standards have not been lowered.

“To see this fight that has already been litigated, has already put to bed, that nobody in the service is actually still grumbling about except for a few guys that have holes in their soul that will never be filled, is so incredibly infuriating,” she reflects.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/26/janessa-goldbeck-vet-voice-foundation-trump

--------------------------------------------

My Comments :

From day one after the second WH tour of Trump, I wrote on Twitter, that the only hope now for the USA and the rest of the world, must be a kongsi of the USA safety- and security-community (including the army) to place a counter-coup against this racist, fascist and authoritarian menace.

Trump had not only proven beyond all reasonable doubt, that he was definitely in for a coup d'état in 2021 (remember his "stop the steal" campaign, resulting in the storming of the Capitol by his militias, in order to have the vote-count sabotaged), but was firmly decided, to finish the job, once being elected.

After all, did not he openly advocate during his third campaign to the electorate, the motto : "You have only to vote me for president, and afterwords, you will not have to go to the balled box ever again".

In the same tweet, I also stated, that the countercoup would have to be organised sooner rather than later after the election, because Trump and his dictatorial allies, did also realise in full the option (and danger) of such countermovement.

Hence his immediate (after his inauguration) wholesale change of all the top-jobs in those organisations, to prevent dissent developing in a meaningful way :

Once the chiefs of staff would have been dismissed, they would lose authority over the chains of command, and would miss hugely out on the all too needed effectiveness : Take them by surprise!

His tactics of shock doctrine, as well as his policies, do come from the ultra-orthodox, ultra conservative and hyper theocratic Heritage Foundation, that from its launch during the Nixon / Reagan years, did already left a stain on the USA democracy

Its present alliance with the christian and zionist Jews (mark the Esther project), does mean, that their greedy arch-authoritarian, unabidedly conservative tentacles are reaching out all over the world now, including towards Europa, that in their eyes is an extreme-leftist poole of satan-ap0logists, honouring the anti-christ...

So all of us supporting the precious values of democracy and justice : be on your guard and be prepared to fight back against this avalance of aggressive and insane proponents, advocating the return tot the Middle Ages...

vrijdag 26 december 2025

The intel scandal behind Prince Andrew’s twisted Epstein exploits

Kit Klarenberg·November 16, 2025

In an interview with The Grayzone, author Andrew Lownie details shocking findings of his research into Prince Andrew’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Describing Andrew as his “Super Bowl trophy,” Epstein used the prince for intel, which he passed to foreign spy agencies. Lownie says further revelations threaten to “bury” the Royal Family.

Prince Andrew’s decades-long relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was “earlier, longer, and far more intimate than anyone has previously admitted,” historian Andrew Lownie told The Grayzone. Their friendship was so depraved that even Epstein, the self-proclaimed “king of kink,” was shocked by the Prince’s sexual appetites, according to Lownie’s new book, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York.

Based on years of research in BBC archives, interviews, and leaked emails, Lownie’s investigation provides a chilling portrait of a man shielded by royal privilege, addicted to sex from childhood, and ultimately undone by his alliance with the world’s most notorious pedophile. The historian reveals that Epstein not only supplied Andrew with a steady stream of underage girls, but also gathered intelligence from the prince, and dutifully passed it along to Mossad and other spy agencies.

“The Prince was a useful idiot who gave Epstein respectability and access to political leaders and business opportunities,” Lownie explained to The Grayzone. “Meanwhile, Epstein offered Andrew an opportunity to join the super rich and enjoy a lifestyle to which he had long aspired, an endless supply of women, a chance to make lots of money, and someone who would bankroll his lavish lifestyle as well as settle Sarah Ferguson’s debts.”

Lownie revealed that Epstein was able to gather a steady flow of sensitive intelligence from Andrew, including potential blackmail material which he could hawk to foreign governments. Epstein’s one-time ‘mentor,’ the serial fraudster Steven Hoffenberg echoed this account, claiming Epstein referred to Andrew as his “Super Bowl trophy.” While the British royal unwittingly spied on Epstein’s behalf, he simultaneously compromised himself, making him into a perfect tool.

For much of his life, Andrew enjoyed an astonishing level of protection and indulgence from his mother, Queen Elizabeth. A former worker interviewed by an Australian outlet divulged that royal staffers were terrified by the prince’s impunity, and largely avoided standing up to his compulsive bullying because “Her Majesty almost always backed him and he fully exploited that.”

Lownie told The Grayzone Andrew’s explosive tantrums at Buckingham Palace, which reduced some targets to tears, were a “virtually daily” occurrence.

A source close to Andrew revealed to Lownie that the prince began exhibiting unusual sexual tendencies when he was only eight years old. The problem only worsened when Andrew lost his virginity at age 11 after a friend’s father hired two escorts for the boys. Andrew reportedly informed the source that by the time he was 13, he had already slept with over half a dozen girls, leading the source to conclude that the prince had been “a victim of sexual abuse at a very young age.”

Thanks to Andrew and Epstein, the cycle of abuse allegedly continued with a number of young girls — most notably, Virginia Giuffre. When her allegations against the Prince became public in 2015, a BBC team secretly travelled across the US, reviewing police files, while interviewing the pair’s victims at length. Along the way, they unearthed emails between Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell discussing Giuffre.

The emails offer no indication either were unaware of Giuffre, or any sense her allegations were bogus. Lownie says the BBC team’s lead investigator told him, “instead Andrew and Maxwell worked together to build a dossier about Virginia [Giuffre] to leak to the media.” In other words, the pair colluded to smear one of their victims in the court of public opinion, before legal action could be initiated. When a suit was finally initiated on her behalf, Andrew paid out handsomely rather than face scrutiny.

Lownie believes full disclosure of Andrew’s involvement with Epstein could permanently sink the House of Windsor. A former Buckingham Palace staffer told him, “they’d never be able to bounce back from it,” as the resultant scandal “would bury them for good.” Lownie’s source cautioned, “if the unconditional truth is ever released, the British public would try to impeach the Royal Family — after all, many of Andrew’s wrongdoings were done on the British taxpayer’s tab.”

Andrew’s sexual depravity shocks even Epstein

Canadian journalist Ian Halperin was the only reporter to interview Epstein at length before the financier’s death. He provided Lownie with exclusive access to his records. They show Epstein was surprisingly candid about his predilection for underage girls, to the extent of openly arguing pedophilia should be decriminalized. Along the way, the pedophile offered a number of explosive revelations about Andrew, who he described as his “closest friend in the world.”

In one email, Epstein insisted he and Andrew were “very similar,” as they were “both serial sex addicts” who’d even “shared the same women.” Andrew was “the only person I have met who is more obsessed with pussy than me,” he attested. Based on “reports” Epstein received from their mutual sexual conquests, Andrew was “the most perverted animal in the bedroom,” he wrote. Epstein expressed awe at the degeneracy of Andrew, who he said possessed “the dirtiest mind I’ve ever seen,” concluding: “He likes to engage in stuff that’s even kinky to me – and I’m the king of kink!”

Lownie also provides evidence that the depraved duo crossed paths far earlier than is claimed by Andrew. According to a statement by the prince after Epstein’s death, he insisted they met in 1999 and subsequently saw each other “probably no more than only once or twice a year.” In reality, Andrew’s private secretary places the start of their friendship in “the early 1990s,” Lownie explained. Flight logs from Epstein’s private jet, nicknamed the Lolita Express, reveal that Andrew’s occasional partner, Sarah Ferguson, travelled on the aircraft with her children as early as April 1998.

By 2000, the royal had become a fixture at elite Stateside social events hosted by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, the publishing heiress who met Andrew during the 1980s at Oxford University. As their friendship developed, Andrew and Ferguson often stayed at Epstein’s palatial New York and Florida homes.

These trips have largely been concealed from the public, which is perhaps understandable given the purpose of his visits.

“Whenever Andrew was in town, I’d be picking up young girls who were essentially prostitutes,” Epstein’s personal driver, Ivan Novikov, recalled to Lownie. “One time I drove him and two young girls around 18 to the Gansevoort Hotel in the Meatpacking District. Both girls were doing lines of cocaine. Prince Andrew was making out with one of them.”

All the while, Epstein and Maxwell were insinuating themselves into the top echelons of the British aristocracy. According to one now-deleted British media report, Andrew invited Epstein and Maxwell to attend events at Windsor Castle and Sandringham in 2001, including Queen Elizabeth II’s 74th birthday that August. The article, which has since been scrubbed from London’s Evening Standard website, quoted a friend of Ferguson’s as saying Andrew’s lewdness was so undisguised that he “travels abroad with his own massage mattress.” According to the Evening Standard, the “very manipulative” Maxwell introduced Andrew to a “sex aid entrepreneur” at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.

The same piece described Andrew traveling around Phuket, Thailand with Maxwell, frequenting “sex bars in the area’s red light district”, and visiting Los Angeles with his friend and “self-confessed drug dealer” Brett Livingstone-Strong. During this time, Andrew was apparently so infatuated with Epstein and his clique that he opted to stay at the pedophile’s Miami beach mansion rather than attend his daughter Eugenie’s 12th birthday party at Disneyland Paris, Lownie reveals.

Andrew’s fall from grace

In May 2007, Epstein began negotiating an unusually lenient plea deal with Florida authorities after local police uncovered a trove of evidence implicating the financier in a national sex trafficking conspiracy. Finally, English-language media began scrutinizing the potentially pedophilic implications of the financier’s bond with Prince Andrew for the first time. Another since-deleted Evening Standard report on their friendship noted Epstein’s Florida mansion was filled with pictures of nude girls, with two cameras found hidden in clocks.

The net significantly tightened in December 2014, when lawyers filed court papers in Florida alleging Andrew was one of several prominent figures who’d raped Virginia Giuffre at Epstein’s arrangement. The pair purportedly had sex in London, New York, and on Epstein’s private island, Little Saint James. In the latter case, Giuffre claimed to have been involved in a “disgusting” orgy with Andrew, Epstein, and multiple girls who “all seemed and appeared to be under the age of 18.”

The filings also alleged Andrew had lobbied on Epstein’s behalf after his arrest, working to ensure he received a light sentence. Epstein repaid the favor by clearing Sarah Ferguson’s substantial debts. British media reacted with shock: “Prince Andrew may have been secretly filmed with underage girl he is alleged to have abused,” blared one mainstream headline. That day, a seemingly frantic Andrew emailed Maxwell: “Let me know when we can talk. Got some specific questions to ask you about Virginia Roberts.”

Buckingham Palace issued a firm denial, stating “any suggestion of impropriety” by Andrew “with underage minors is categorically untrue,” and that he “emphatically denied the Duke of York had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Virginia Roberts.” Until Epstein’s death, the British media seemingly accepted the royal line. But Andrew’s now-notorious November 2019 Newsnight interview revived public suspicions, and ignited a new wave of scrutiny.

Over the course of an hour-long grilling, the Prince offered a series of preposterous excuses for his friendship with Epstein, while failing to credibly explain his time with Giuffre. For example, he claimed her account of him sweating profusely while they danced together at a London night club couldn’t be true, as he was unable to sweat at all because he suffered a scientifically implausible “adrenaline overdose” during the Falklands war.

Next, Andrew attempted to justify a four-day December 2010 visit to Epstein in New York, during which paparazzi documented a young woman leaving his town house, and a friendly walk he enjoyed with the prince through Central Park. (The tweet below incorrectly dates the footage from 2011; it was filmed on December 6, 2010).

In his Newsnight interview, Andrew claimed he initiated the meeting to break off ties with the financier following his conviction for sex trafficking offenses. He insisted that he felt the need to end their connection in person, due to his “tendency to be too honourable,” but struggled to explain why this necessitated a four-night-long stay, replete with a dinner party in his personal honor.

The prince claimed he opted to stay at Epstein’s mansion as “it was… convenient” — apparently overlooking the British consulate and numerous upmarket hotels which could have provided an alternative to staying with a convicted sex offender.

Furor over Andrew’s performance erupted as soon as the interview was broadcast, with one royal observer dubbing it, “nuclear explosion level bad.” Yet the Prince was initially satisfied with his public self-immolation. The Guardian reported at the time that Andrew “was so pleased with how things had gone that he gave the Newsnight team a tour of the palace afterwards.”

Andrew’s British state protection crumbles

Days after the disastrous interview, Andrew’s ex-girlfriend disputed his account of the 2010 visit with Epstein, stating that the prince’s main purpose was to determine whether the financier had “any dirt on him.” The pair reportedly also discussed securing $200 million funding for mysterious energy company Aria Petroleum, prompting Epstein to inform close contacts at JP Morgan that the prince sought to represent the interests of a Chinese commercial entity.

From this point on, Andrew withdrew from public life. Under pressure from British Army apparatchiks, he was stripped of his military awards and decorations. Charities distanced themselves from the royal, while polls indicated a majority of Britons believed he should be extradited to the US to face questioning. In May 2020, Andrew permanently resigned all his public roles over his Epstein connections. In the meantime, pressure began building in the US for the Prince to speak to Giuffre’s lawyers and federal investigators.

In his Newsnight interview and subsequent official statements, Andrew claimed he was happy to assist with any investigation into Epstein’s abuse. But the American prosecutor who led investigations into the financier and his associates in New York, Geoffrey Berman, reported he was repeatedly stonewalled by Buckingham Palace. Contacting royal lawyers was difficult enough in the first place, he said, and he described their communications as having quickly devolved into an never-ending series of questions.

“What kind of an interview will it be? Are there any protections? Is there this? Is there that? And where do you want it to take place?” Berman recalled. “It was an endless email exchange, and it was clear we were getting the run-around. He was not going to sit down for an interview with us.” Finally, Berman asked the State Department to dispatch a mutual legal assistance treaty (MLAT) request to British police, demanding an interview with the prince.

US prosecutors “almost always got what we asked when we put in an MLAT request,” Berman recalled. “But that was not what happened with Prince Andrew. We got absolutely nowhere. Were they protecting him? I assume someone was.”

Andrew’s state-level protections began to dissolve, however, after a December 2020 investigation by the Daily Mail into Giuffre’s claim that Andrew had sex with her when she was just 17. His alibis for the dates in question had been incinerated.

In August 2021, Giuffre’s lawyers filed suit against Andrew in a US court for “sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress.” The action raised the prospect of Andrew giving sworn testimony proving his inability to sweat on the witness stand. Members of the Royal Family, including Ferguson and their daughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, also faced the threat of grilling under oath. Rather than go to court, the House of Windsor settled for as much as $16.3 million.

Andrew Prince no more as scandals proliferate

For the first time, Buckingham Palace began to firmly distance itself from Andrew. As Lownie recorded, the media was informed that the Queen would no longer bankroll his legal fees. After a lifetime of protecting her son from the consequences of his excesses, fear of further damaging admissions may have motivated the monarch’s decision.

Those fears were well-founded, as Lownie revealed that Andrew emailed Epstein in February 2011, months after claiming to have cut off all contact with the financier following their four day 2010 ‘farewell’ summit in New York.

In that email, Andrew promised to “keep in close touch,” stating, “we are in this together and will have to rise above it,” and promising, “we’ll play some more soon!!!” That same year, Sarah Ferguson expressed her affinity and gratitude to Epstein in a separate covert email exchange. Sources suggested to Lownie that Epstein had supplied her with hundreds of thousands of dollars, far in excess of the £15,000 she claims to have received from the serial sex abuser.

In a 2011 interview, Ferguson said “having anything to do” with Epstein had been a “gigantic error of judgment” on her part. She added, “I abhor paedophilia and any sexual abuse of children…what he did was wrong and…he was rightly jailed.” Shortly after though, she contacted Epstein claiming she “did not, absolutely not, say the ‘P word’ about you.” Ferguson apologised for letting him down, stating “you have always been a steadfast, generous and supreme friend to me and my family.”

This October 30, as furor over Epstein’s activities engulfed the Trump administration, Buckingham Palace issued a shock declaration. Prince Andrew will be stripped of his titles, honors, and stately home, and now simply be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor – in effect excommunicated from the British Royal Family for life. While no formal explanation for the unprecedented move was provided, it was clear they were determined to cleanse Epstein’s stain from their house.

“These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him,” the royal statement read. “Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.”

But Andrew’s erasure from the spotlight, termination of his assorted patronages and curtailment of public duties may have come too late. After years of alternating between silence over his sexual abuse or flatly denying the allegations, Buckingham Palace faces the threat of further disclosures. As Lownie makes clear in his newly released book, Entitled, new details of the prince’s perversions could discredit the royal family for good.