"Shit.."
That was Ghislaine Maxwell's reply, in writing, when the Telegraph pulled flight records of Epstein's landings at Royal Air Force bases.
Three months before the Telegraph asked how Jeffrey Epstein landed at a Royal Air Force base, Prince Andrew sent him a Christmas email. The federal record now contains both — and what the Epstein network said when the Telegraph called.
In February 2026, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown sent letters to six police forces — London, Surrey, Sussex, Thames Valley, Norfolk, and Bedfordshire — calling for investigation into whether Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor used taxpayer-funded jets and active Royal Air Force bases to facilitate meetings with Jeffrey Epstein.[1] Brown named RAF Marham specifically. The UK Defence Secretary subsequently ordered the Ministry of Defence to review all records of Epstein flights at RAF bases.[2] Brown returned to the question on April 29, 2026 in The New Statesman, calling the British state’s “unacknowledged role” in the Epstein affair “by far the biggest scandal of all.”[3]
The question Brown is pressing in 2026 — how did a man who would later be convicted of sex offenses against minors gain access to active British military airfields, and who helped him — was raised in print fifteen years ago. The Telegraph published it. The story did not break through.
What the federal record now shows is that the Epstein network knew the story was coming, knew it was true, and mobilized to manage it.
This piece walks through that documentary record in three parts: the relationship the records establish, the Telegraph publication that surfaced it, and the response apparatus the federal documents now make visible. Every fact below is anchored to a Bates-numbered page in the United States Department of Justice Epstein Files Transparency Act release.
I. December 22, 2010: “My US family”
To understand what Brown is asking, start with a Christmas card.
On December 22, 2010 at 8:23 PM, an email arrived in Jeffrey Epstein’s personal Gmail inbox at jeevacation@gmail.com. The sender field read simply: The Duke. The subject line: Happy Christmas. The attachment: a JPG titled “York Family E-card.jpg.”
The body, in full:
“Dear [redacted],
Wishing you a wonderful Christmas and spectacular entry into 2011. It was great to spend time with my US family.
Looking forward to joining you all again soon.
A
I’ll call you tomorrow around 1800 my time as I am moving the family up to Sandringham during the day.
HRH The Duke of York KG”[4] [EFTA02394628]
Read what the four sentences actually say.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor — at this date the Duke of York, the Queen’s second son, and the United Kingdom’s official Trade Envoy — is in direct, personal email correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein. The relationship has a category: “my US family.” The visits are recurring: “looking forward to joining you all again soon.” And on the day before the email, Andrew tells Epstein his movements: he is moving his family to Sandringham — the Queen’s private Norfolk estate — and will call from there.
Two and a half years before this email, Epstein had pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution. He had registered as a sex offender. He was on federal supervised release. None of that ended the relationship. The Christmas email is two months before the Telegraph would query the Sitrick public-relations firm about Epstein’s prior landings at British military airfields. It is seven months before US Customs and Border Protection would renew Epstein’s federal Visa Waiver Program carrier authority through 2018.[5]
Andrew is calling Epstein his US family. He is telling Epstein his Royal-residence movements in writing. He is signing the formal closing as HRH The Duke of York KG — the post-nominal KG is Knight of the Garter, the most senior order of British chivalry. Knights of the Garter do not, as a rule, send their movements to convicted sex offenders.
This is the relationship Brown’s letters are now asking British police to examine.
II. March 11, 2011: The Telegraph published it
Three months later, the Telegraph ran the story.
On Friday March 11, 2011, the Daily Telegraph published a piece by veteran journalist Peter Stanford titled “Whatever Happened to the Maxwells?” The article was a profile of the Maxwell family in the wake of Robert Maxwell’s death twenty years earlier, anchored to Ghislaine Maxwell’s relationship with Epstein. The relevant paragraph, verbatim from the EFTA scan:
“Soon after her arrival in New York, Ghislaine Maxwell — who has never married — started to appear on the arm of the immensely wealthy Epstein. Their friendship has proved enduring. She was alongside him on his private jet when he flew in to RAF Markham in 2000 to visit Prince Andrew at Sandringham, and she is there, too, hovering, slightly uneasily, in the background of a by-now familiar photograph of the Queen’s second son with his arm around the waist of a 17-year-old, allegedly hired as a masseuse for Epstein.”[6]
What that paragraph published, in 2011:
That Epstein flew his private jet to a Royal Air Force base in November 2000.[7] That Ghislaine Maxwell was on the aircraft. That the purpose of the trip was to visit Prince Andrew at Sandringham. That a photograph existed of Andrew with his arm around a 17-year-old girl described as “allegedly hired as a masseuse for Epstein.”
That photograph — the one the Telegraph called “by-now familiar” in March 2011 — would, over the following decade, become one of the most-reproduced images in the global press: Prince Andrew with his arm around the waist of Virginia Giuffre, then seventeen, with Ghislaine Maxwell visible behind them. Giuffre would later allege that on the night the photograph was taken, she was trafficked to Andrew. Andrew denied the allegation. Giuffre settled a civil suit against him in 2022. She died in April 2025.
In March 2011, all of this was already on the public record in the Telegraph. The flight to a British military airfield, the Royal visit, the photograph, the seventeen-year-old, the “alleged masseuse” framing. None of it was secret. It ran on Friday, March 11, 2011, in one of the United Kingdom’s largest national newspapers.
The investigation that should have followed did not follow.
Andrew remained Trade Envoy until July 2011. Epstein’s federal carrier authority was renewed in October 2011. The story, as a story, was deflected with sympathetic op-eds — Daily Telegraph columnist Dominic Lawson published “I stayed at Epstein’s so don’t hound Andrew” on March 13, two days after the Stanford piece — and the news cycle ended.
That is what Gordon Brown is now asking British police to undo.
III. The response apparatus
What was happening inside the Epstein network during these days is what the federal record now makes visible.
The story Stanford published on March 11 had been forecast to the network on March 9.
On Wednesday, March 9, 2011 at 11:39 AM, Thomas S. Mulligan of Sitrick And Company — the New York crisis-communications firm Epstein retained — emailed his colleagues Tony Knight and Mike Sitrick. Subject: “query from London Telegraph.” Importance: High. The body:
“Jon Swaine of the Telegraph dug up old flight records showing that in November 2000, Epstein’s plane landed twice at RAF airfields, once at RAF Marham and once at RAF Horsham. His questions: How did Epstein get permission to land at military bases? Did anyone — namely Prince Andrew — help him get permission?”[8]
Sitrick forwarded the query to Epstein at 7:41 PM the same day, marked High. Epstein forwarded Sitrick’s email to a contact identified in the chain as “Gmax.”[9] [EFTA01837627]
Gmax replied: “I think that’s crap and not true and you should say So.”
Epstein replied:
“just spoke to larry,,, its true.”
Gmax replied:
“Shit..”
Six lines, total. The single email exchange settles three questions at once.
Who knew the story was coming. Sitrick’s office. Epstein. Gmax — whose email handle, timing, and substantive engagement with a story about Maxwell’s role on the aircraft point to one identification.[10] Larry — Larry Visoski, Epstein’s Chief Pilot — who two months earlier had written to US Customs and Border Protection in Newark acknowledging in writing that “the owner of the Aircraft is a registered sex offender and is sometimes subject to enhanced scrutiny.”[11]
What they confirmed about the underlying facts. That the November 2000 RAF landings happened. “Just spoke to larry,,, its true.” No qualification, no hedge, no challenge to the flight records the Telegraph had pulled.
What the network’s reaction was. “Shit..” — the federal record’s preserved one-word response from a person whose former corporate vehicle, Air Ghislaine Inc., would three months later be renamed Freedom Air International and submitted by Epstein’s attorney for federal Visa Waiver Program renewal.[12]
Two days later, Stanford’s article ran. Within the network, the response apparatus mobilized. The Stanford piece was forwarded at 15:18 on March 11 by Robert Neal of Skellig Partners, LP, with the subject line “your pals,” to a recipient identified as David. Lesley Groff — Epstein’s executive assistant, later indicted on federal sex-trafficking conspiracy charges — was on the cc line of the resend.[^13]
The Telegraph published. The article circulated within the network within hours. The crisis-PR firm worked the response. Sympathetic op-eds appeared in the same paper two days later. The story did not break through.
IV. What this is
The federal record does not, by itself, prove that Prince Andrew helped Epstein obtain clearance to land at RAF Marham in November 2000. The records that would prove or disprove that — Ministry of Defence flight clearance authorizations, RAF base visitor logs, Foreign Office and Trade Envoy correspondence from 2000 — are British records, held by the British government, and they are precisely the records Gordon Brown’s February 2026 letters demanded that British police obtain.
What the federal record does prove is everything around the question.
It proves that fifteen years ago, an experienced Telegraph reporter — Jon Swaine, now an investigative journalist at The New York Times — pulled flight records and asked the question in writing. It proves that Epstein’s crisis-communications firm escalated the query to Epstein the same day. It proves that Epstein checked with his Chief Pilot and confirmed in writing that the landings happened. It proves that Maxwell, on hearing the answer, said “Shit..” It proves that two days later the Telegraph published the airfield, the Royal visit, the photograph, and the seventeen-year-old. It proves that the network had Andrew’s personal Christmas email three months earlier — “my US family,” signed HRH The Duke of York KG — sitting in Epstein’s inbox the entire time.
It proves that the story did not have to wait until 2026 to be told.
The story Gordon Brown is now asking British police to investigate ran in 2011. The corroborating documentary record was sitting in Epstein’s email account that whole time, and is now in the United States Department of Justice public release. The reason Brown’s intervention matters in 2026 is not that he is raising new facts. It is that he is asking, with the moral and political weight of a former Prime Minister, what the British state failed to do when the Telegraph put the facts on its front page in 2011.
The Ministry of Defence is now reviewing the records. Six British police forces have the letters. The US federal record has the corroboration.
The question this time is whether the answer gets buried again.
This article is part of my Epstein Files Investigative series. Explore more here.
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References
[^1]: Brown’s February 2026 letters were first reported by the Sunday Telegraph. See: “Gordon Brown calls for investigation into claims Andrew used taxpayer-funded RAF bases to meet Epstein,” LBC, February 22, 2026. The six police forces named in the reporting were the Metropolitan Police, Surrey, Sussex, Thames Valley, Norfolk, and Bedfordshire.
[^2]: “Defence Secretary orders investigation into alleged use of RAF bases by Epstein,” BFBS Forces News, February 27, 2026. Per the MoD spokesperson quoted: “The Defence Secretary has ordered a review of all records that the department may hold relating to Epstein flights landing at RAF bases to ensure that any information which relates to Epstein’s crimes is uncovered and provided to the relevant authorities.”
[^3]: Gordon Brown, The New Statesman, April 29, 2026.
[^4]: EFTA02394628 (legacy stamp EFTA_R1_01424123). Email from “The Duke” to jeevacation@gmail.com, December 22, 2010, 8:23 PM. Subject: Happy Christmas. Attachment: York Family E-card.jpg. Recipient name redacted in the EFTA scan; the Gmail address is Epstein’s personal account, identified by name elsewhere in the EFTA corpus. Retrieve at justice.gov/epstein/search or epstein-data.com by Bates number.
[^5]: For the full record of the 2011 federal Visa Waiver Program carrier renewal — including Director Dennis McKee’s signoff at CBP’s Fines, Penalties and Forfeitures Division and Larry Visoski’s January 2011 letter to CBP Newark — see “Convicted. Registered. Licensed to Traffic.,” Sayer Ji’s Substack, May 5, 2026.
[^6]: EFTA00436905-907. Peter Stanford, “Whatever Happened to the Maxwells?,” The Daily Telegraph, March 11, 2011, 20:16 GMT. The full article appears in the EFTA corpus as a forwarded internal email circulated within the Epstein network on March 11 at 15:18 EST by Robert Neal of Skellig Partners, LP. The Telegraph’s published text spelled the airfield “RAF Markham.” The actual airfield is RAF Marham in Norfolk, twenty miles from Sandringham — the spelling matters for FOIA precision in any subsequent UK records request.
[^7]: Subsequent UK reporting on Brown’s 2026 intervention has refined the November 2000 chronology: per LBC (February 22, 2026) and GB News (February 22, 2026), Epstein and Maxwell landed at Luton, transferred to a Gulfstream the following day, and flew into RAF Marham with two additional passengers, one referred to in flight records as an unnamed “female.” From RAF Marham, they traveled approximately 20 miles to Sandringham.
[^8]: EFTA01797814 (legacy stamp EFTA_R1_00135211–12). Email chain dated Wednesday, March 9, 2011. The chain runs: Mulligan → Knight & Sitrick (11:39 AM, Importance: High) → Sitrick → Epstein (7:41 PM, Importance: High) → Epstein → Gmax (15:53) → Gmax reply (12:56 PM, time-zone disordered in chain) “I think that’s crap and not true and you should say So” → Epstein reply (16:03) “just spoke to larry,,, its true” → Gmax reply (21:04) “Shit..” The chain is preserved in two pages of the EFTA scan.
[^9]: The forward to “Gmax” from Epstein’s personal Gmail account is preserved as part of the EFTA01797814 chain. The recipient’s email handle in the chain is Gmax with the actual address redacted in the production.
[^10]: The “GM” abbreviation appears separately in EFTA00429560 — Darren Indyke’s July 28, 2011 disclosure that “Freedom Air International’s owner has changed from GM to FSF, LLC last week.” The corporate vehicle that became Freedom Air International was previously incorporated as Air Ghislaine, Inc.
[^11]: EFTA01098451. Larry Visoski letter to Customs and Border Protection, January 2011. See “Convicted. Registered. Licensed to Traffic.,” Sayer Ji’s Substack, May 5, 2026, for the full text and context.
[^12]: The Air Ghislaine → Freedom Air International rename and the GM-to-FSF, LLC ownership transfer occurred during the active 2011 federal renewal cycle. Indyke’s signed I-775 as Vice President of Freedom Air International (June 2011) and the subsequent ownership transfer (July 2011) are documented at EFTA00429558–60.
[^13]: EFTA00436905. Forward of the Peter Stanford Telegraph article from Robert Neal (Skellig Partners, LP) on March 11, 2011 at 15:18, with Lesley Groff cc’d on the resend. Groff was indicted on federal sex-trafficking conspiracy charges in connection with the Maxwell prosecution.
Where to retrieve the cited documents: The official DOJ portal is justice.gov/epstein/search — a search-interface portal serving the EFTA production through an iframe. For direct retrieval by Bates number, the independent indexed mirror at epstein-data.com provides full-text search and direct document access.
Prior reporting in this investigation: The May 5, 2026 piece on the federal carrier renewal architecture and the April 18, 2026 piece on the No. 10 channel and the original I-775 documents.
Thank you for your deep dive into this unpleasant but important matter.
I don't understand how it isn't abundantly clear to everyone. Epstein, was more then likely, in intelligence. I don't know what country. Sadly, the women, no matter the age, were a "carrot," so to speak. They are presently being used today, just as they were used for years, to hide the true story. IMHO. This is about the "intelligence, " world. This is influence pedaling, blackmail, and make no mistake, this is how you handle and control the elite and top Government officials, in many countries.
My opinion.