King Charles Will Meet 9/11 Families But Still Won’t Face Jeffrey Epstein’s Victims

King Charles has found a safe kind of grief to stand beside. On his upcoming U.S. visit, he and Camilla will meet first responders and families affected by 9/11 in New York as part of the 25th anniversary commemorations. That is, of course, a solemn and legitimate engagement. But it is also one that comes wrapped in moral convenience. Charles is perfectly willing to be photographed honouring victims of terror in America while the wider British establishment still recoils from any honest reckoning with the Epstein rot that touched his own royal sphere.

That is the part worth saying plainly. Nobody is objecting to compassion for 9/11 families. The issue is the contrast. Charles has long preferred symbolic decency at a careful distance over any uncomfortable proximity to the scandals that stain the monarchy and its orbit. He will cross the Atlantic, attend a state dinner, address Congress, shake hands in New York and Virginia, and present himself as the embodiment of continuity and reflection. Yet the same institution still has no appetite for the kind of moral clarity that would require looking directly at its own failures, enablers and associations.

King Charles III and his wife Queen Camilla are coming to America for their first official state visit to the country.

The king and queen will arrive in the United States on Monday, April 27, and will travel to two states – New York and Virginia – as well as Washington, D.C.

This will be Charles’ first visit to the U.S. since 2018, when he attended the state funeral of former President George H.W. Bush.

On Tuesday, Buckingham Palace shared more details of Charles and Camilla’s U.S. visit, which will include a state dinner at the White House and a celebration of America’s 250th birthday.

“The visit will be an opportunity to recognise the shared history of our two nations; the breadth of the economic, security and cultural relationship that has developed since then; and the deep people-to-people connections which unite communities,” the palace said in a statement.

In New York City, Charles and Camilla will meet with first responders and the families of victims of the 9/11 attack in recognition of its 25th anniversary, according to the palace.

They will also attend other events in the city spotlighting literature, the issue of food insecurity, and the economic and creative links between the U.S. and the United Kingdom.

ABC

The Wrong Kind of Courage

Meeting 9/11 victims is a fine thing. No reasonable person objects to a monarch showing respect for those who suffered and died in one of the worst attacks on American soil. The families deserve recognition. The first responders deserve gratitude.

But the timing and the selectivity are doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

Charles is perfectly willing to stand in New York and express sorrow for an atrocity that happened twenty‑five years ago, an atrocity with no connection to his family, his finances, or his brother. That is safe grief, uncontroversial and the kind of gesture that generates approving headlines and not a single awkward question about former Prince Andrew.

Meanwhile, the Epstein victims, living women, some of whom have spoken directly about meeting Andrew, being trafficked, and seeing no accountability, remain unacknowledged by the king. No meeting, no statement and no public expression of regret or even curiosity about what happened under his family’s roof.

And let us not pretend the palace does not know how to arrange such things. If Charles can organise a garden party and a congressional address, he can organise a private meeting with survivors. He simply chooses not to.

The Bin Laden Elephant in the Room

Now, because the internet has a long memory, let me also note the other uncomfortable layer here. As some observers have already pointed out, Charles’s charities and the Duchy of Cornwall have, over the years, accepted donations or held connections with individuals who share a surname that raises eyebrows. One of Charles’s charities faced scrutiny in 2022 after reports that the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund accepted a £1 million donation in 2013 from Bakr and Shafiq bin Laden, half-brothers of Osama bin Laden. Clarence House said trustees approved the donation after due diligence, and there is no suggestion either man was involved in terrorism.

Yes, the family publicly disowned Osama decades ago. Yes, they are not the same as the man who ordered 9/11. But the optics of a king who wants to honour 9/11 victims while his own foundation has rubbed shoulders with that name? Not great.

The underlying question is not unfair: where does the king draw his moral lines? Apparently, posing for photographs with 9/11 families is inside the line. Asking his brother to face consequences, or scrutinising his own charitable donors, is outside it.

The Real Problem Here

Charles wants the soft focus and the warm applause. He wants to be seen as a global statesman who shares in America’s grief. But he refuses to do the hard, uncomfortable work of cleaning his own house. Andrew is now largely out of sight on the Sandringham estate, still protected from the kind of full public reckoning many people believe his association with Epstein demands. The victims’ calls for justice go unanswered.

So yes, by all means, let the king visit the 9/11 memorial. Let him lay a wreath. Let him shake hands with firefighters. And then let someone – anyone – ask him: “When will you meet with the women your brother harmed?”

Because that is the meeting that actually matters. And Charles, predictably, will not be scheduling that one.