His face, along with President Trump’s was projected onto a wall of Windsor Castle by demonstrators, and plastered on a giant photograph they unfurled on the lawn outside the gates of the castle.
Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and convicted sex offender who died in jail in 2019, in what was ruled a suicide, is an unwelcome ghost shadowing Mr. Trump’s state visit to Britain — almost certainly never spoken of by the hosts or guests, but surely rarely forgotten, given the web of associations that link him to Mr. Trump, the royal family, and the British government.
Two conspicuous absentees from the visit: Prince Andrew, the younger brother of King Charles III, and Peter Mandelson, Britain’s former ambassador to the United States. Both would have been on hand, but both have been banished because of their long-ago associations with Mr. Epstein, unlike Mr. Trump who has managed to float above the Epstein scandal, even as protesters hammered home the connection.
Last week, on the eve of the visit, Prime Minister Keir Starmer was forced to dismiss Mr. Mandelson after troubling revelations about the depth of his friendship with Mr. Epstein. Questions about what Mr. Starmer knew about Mr. Mandelson’s relationship when he defended him in Parliament last week have spiraled into a political crisis for his Labour government.
Mr. Trump regularly deflects questions about his ties to Mr. Epstein, with whom he was friendly for at least 15 years, by his own account. The Epstein saga has become a fevered cause for Mr. Trump’s MAGA supporters, though he insists it is being spun up by conspiracy-minded Democrats.
For the royal family, too, Mr. Epstein is a lingering stain. Andrew was forced into internal exile and stripped of his military titles after he fumbled questions about his friendship with Mr. Epstein in 2019.
Charles and Mr. Trump are unlikely to discuss Mr. Epstein during a banquet on Wednesday evening. Nor is the subject likely to surface in any public remarks by Mr. Trump and Mr. Starmer at the prime minister’s country residence, Chequers, on Thursday.
Yet neither man can keep this ghost entirely locked in a box. They are scheduled to meet journalists at a news conference on Thursday afternoon; a reporter could yet ask them about Mr. Epstein.
Mark Landler is the London bureau chief of The Times, covering the United Kingdom, as well as American foreign policy in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He has been a journalist for more than three decades.
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