In the ongoing saga of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, the notion of “closure” has remained elusive. Despite the recent, massive dump of documents by the U.S. Department of Justice—totaling millions of pages—the public is left with a peculiar paradox. While the files mention President Donald Trump over 38,000 times, officials insist he has been “completely exonerated” . Conversely, the one figure who has faced the full, unrelenting force of legal and media fire is Prince Andrew.
This divergence in outcome invites a question that moves from simple journalism into the realm of geopolitical theory: Was the destruction of Prince Andrew a staged warning—a piece of political theater orchestrated to send a message to Donald Trump?
While this theory lives in the speculative shadows of the “Epstein conspiracy,” its logic is built on the undeniable patterns of power, media influence, and the specific national interests of Israel—the country that conspiracy theorists, as noted by the Jewish Journal, increasingly place at the center of the Epstein narrative .
The Fall Guy
To understand the “warning” theory, one must first look at the contrast in outcomes. Prince Andrew has been utterly destroyed. His public persona—once that of a dashing Royal Navy veteran and “Playboy Prince”—is now that of a pariah. The British media, with surgical precision, has annihilated his reputation. When he was arrested in February 2026 on suspicion of public office misconduct, the headlines wrote themselves. The Sun ran a photo of a sweating, panicked Andrew with the headline “Now he’s sweating,” a brutal callback to his disastrous Newsnight interview where he claimed a medical condition prevented him from perspiring .
The Daily Mail screamed “Downfall,” declaring the monarchy in its most severe crisis . Every detail of his humiliation has been leaked or published: the fact that the late Queen reportedly bailed him out with £7 million to settle with accuser Virginia Giuffre, that Prince Philip chipped in another £3 million, and that he has yet to pay a penny back . The media has painted him as a “credit cad,” a man who sent Christmas cards and photos of his young daughters to a convicted pedophile after swearing he had cut ties .
In the court of public opinion, Andrew is beyond redemption.
The Political Shield
Contrast this with the treatment of Donald Trump.
The recent document dump confirmed that Trump’s name appears in thousands of files, yet the narrative coming from the Department of Justice and amplified by friendly media outlets is one of “total exoneration” . When CNN’s Kaitlan Collins pressed Trump on what he would say to victims seeking justice, the President did not answer; he attacked the messenger, calling her the “worst journalist” . The strategy is not to hide, but to attack.
House Oversight Chair James Comer provided the political cover, arguing that if there were “any dirt on Donald Trump,” it would have been leaked by his enemies in the “deep state” long ago . The implication is that since nothing stuck, nothing exists.
But the conspiracy-minded observer sees a different dynamic: Power protects power.
The Israeli Connection
This is where the theory regarding Israel emerges. According to a detailed analysis in the Jewish Journal, far-right and far-left circles have converged on a singular narrative regarding Epstein: that his operation was linked to Israeli intelligence .
Figures like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson have promoted the idea that Epstein was a “Mossad asset” or that the “real” story hidden in the files is the influence of Israel over American and British elites . The evidence cited by these theorists, though thin, includes Epstein’s connections to figures like Ehud Barak and the Wexner network.
If one accepts this speculative premise—that Epstein’s blackmail operation was a tool of leverage for a foreign power—then the “warning” theory crystallizes.
Donald Trump, since taking office, has been one of Israel’s staunchest allies. He moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, brokered the Abraham Accords, and has taken a hard line against Iran. He is, in the eyes of many, a critical asset.
Prince Andrew, by contrast, was a liability with no geopolitical value. He was a “deflection artist” who assumed his privilege protected him . The theory posits that Israel (or the nebulous “Epstein intelligence apparatus”) needed to ensure that Trump understood the stakes. They needed to show him what happens to powerful men who get caught in the Epstein web and lose their protection.
Andrew was the example.
The Mechanics of a Warning
How would this work in practice? It would require the selective leaking of information to media allies.
For years, the British press has had a habit of protecting the Royal Family. Yet, in Andrew’s case, the gloves came off. The recent files revealed details that were embarrassingly specific: Andrew on all fours above a woman on a carpet, the “tender” birthday messages, the continued contact .
The “warning theory” suggests that this information was green-lit for release specifically to destroy Andrew, while similar information regarding Trump—of which there is plenty, including the infamous “birthday book” note where Trump appears to wink at Epstein’s tastes—was either withheld or spun as exculpatory .
The message to Trump would be: “We own the narrative. We can make you a Prince Andrew, or we can make you a president. Stay loyal.”
The AEI Perspective
Even establishment thinkers have noted the oddity of the selective outrage. An op-ed from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) recently deconstructed the “Epstein mythos,” noting that the only man besides Epstein to be forced into a legal corner is the “hapless Prince Andrew” .
The AEI piece suggests that the obsession with Epstein is now a “pincer movement” against Trump—hyped by Democrats to hurt him politically and hyped by the isolationist right to drive a wedge between the U.S. and Israel . But the theory proposed here suggests something more coordinated: that the wedge is not being driven by accident, but by design, using Andrew’s corpse as the wedge.
Conclusion: The Smoke and the Fire
It is important to note that this theory is built on circumstantial evidence and the patterns of conspiracy. The Jewish Journal rightly warns that the obsession with Israel in the Epstein case often veers into dangerous, antisemitic scapegoating . The reality is that Epstein’s black book was full of the world’s elite—Saudi princes, American billionaires, British lords, and Chinese moguls . To single out Israel requires ignoring the vast majority of the data.
However, in the world of power, perception is reality. The perception now is that Donald Trump has walked away from the Epstein scandal unscathed, while Prince Andrew has been sacrificed.
If this was a warning, it was a brutal one. It told every powerful man who ever visited Epstein’s island or flew on his plane: You are never safe. Your secrets are not your own. And if you cease to be useful, the media machine that protects you today will destroy you tomorrow.
Andrew, now hiding behind a six-foot fence at Sandringham, is living proof . And Donald Trump, watching from the Oval Office, has surely received the message.