Queen's Decision to Let Prince Andrew Keep Guards Role Sparks Storm Within Military - Report

After the uproar from the 2019 Newsnight interview, labeled a "car crash" by the UK media, Andrew took a hiatus from his royal public duties. Although he had attempted to publicly end his friendship with convicted pedophile Epstein and deny the allegations, he was instead chastised for exhibiting little empathy for the sex offender's victims.

Despite the fact that the Duke of York is unlikely to return to public life, the Queen has "let it be known" that she wishes him to continue as colonel of the Grenadier Guards, The Times reported on Saturday.

According to the report, the Queen has expressed her wish for Prince Andrew to preserve the honorary role he took over from the Duke of Edinburgh in a crucial intervention signaling her support for him. 

"The Queen has let it be known to the regiment that she wants the Duke of York to remain as colonel and the feeling is that nobody wants to do anything that could cause upset to the colonel-in-chief," an undisclosed source in the UK military is quoted in the report as saying. "It is a very difficult, unsatisfactory situation. His position is not tenable or viable. How can you have a colonel who can’t perform the role?"

The source claimed that during the time Prince Andrew served in this new post of his, "he was a good colonel." However, the regimental consensus is that "it is not appropriate to retain him."

"You can’t have a colonel who can’t do public duties," the source noted.

Earlier this week, a Canadian author and documentary filmmaker, Ian Halperin, offered the scandal-plagued prince a shocking sum of $100 million to take a lie detector test on live TV in order to refute and "get a chance to clear his name" in light of the recently filed charges of child sex abuse leveled against him.

According to Halperin's proposal, while wearing a lie detector, the Duke of York would answer questions from the writer about his contacts with the late Epstein, along with his interactions with Giuffre and others in Epstein's entourage, including purported madam Ghislaine Maxwell.

Virginia Roberts Giuffre said she was trafficked by Epstein to have sex with Andrew when she was 17 and a minor under US law, Andrew sexually molested her at least three times, she has alleged. However, the 61-year-old prince has consistently denied having any sexual contact with her. 

Andrew previously stated that he had no recollection of meeting the girl during his contentious BBC Newsnight interview.

Buckingham Palace has also previously vehemently denied any possible involvement of Andrew in the case, noting that "any claim to the contrary is false and without foundation."

The financier mogul Epstein was accused of sexually exploiting dozens of girls and women in July 2019, but soon after, in August of that year, he was found dead in his prison cell while awaiting trial.

Ghislaine Maxwell, who was the latter's ex-girlfriend, was arrested in July 2020 and is expected to stand trial in November for allegedly recruiting girls for Epstein. She has pled not guilty to all charges leveled against her.