So far, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, is the only one of the many public figures drawn into the orbit of Jeffrey Epstein to have had his life essentially destroyed as a result. In a disastrous 2019 BBC interview, during which he displayed no contrition or empathy for his late friend’s victims, Andrew said he would forever rue the day he met Epstein. It would have been more accurate for him to have invoked the day he met Ghislaine Maxwell, who led him to Epstein.

In fact, it now emerges that Maxwell was far more than Epstein’s main procurer and accomplice in the trafficking of young women for abuse — the idea that she was merely a useful sidekick rather than an equal. On the contrary, she was also the enabler of his social climbing. It was she who brought to him the skills to entice powerful and celebrated public men into becoming regular guests of his in New York, Palm Beach, and New Mexico and on his private island in the Caribbean.

All this becomes incrementally clear through the narrative of a devastating new biography of Andrew, Entitled, by royal historian Andrew Lownie. And the resulting portrait of Maxwell gives new gravity to her importance as the last keeper of the sex offender’s secrets — a kind of personalized walking-and-(maybe)-talking “Epstein file” that could have enormous potential consequences for many people, including President Donald Trump.

It turns out that the duke played an unwitting role in enhancing Maxwell’s influence. One of her most effective techniques was to dangle the chance of meeting him as bait for people who would be impressed........

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