‘Misconduct in public office’

Recently: What’s online gambling doing to American society? Gerda Reith on the new “ecosystem” tech, finance, and marketing firms are cultivating together.

Today: Britain’s once international trade envoy has been taken into custody for, it is alleged, sharing government documents with Jeffrey Epstein. … Forty-five countries sent their envoys to the American president’s first Board of Peace meeting, pledging billions. … &c.

For members: Why is Silicon Valley fighting with the EU? Anu Bradford on how American tech companies are enlisting the White House against European regulation. … & How fascist is India’s Hindutva movement? Luna Sebastian’s new book, Fascism in India: Race, Caste, and Hindutva.

+ New music from Ratboys ...

A whole other crime

Thames Valley Police arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on Thursday morning—the first arrest of a senior British royal in modern history. The police took him into custody on suspicion of misconduct in public office, held him for 11 hours, then released him under investigation: not charged, not cleared.

The allegation is that Mountbatten-Windsor, while serving as Britain’s international trade envoy, shared confidential government documents with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. One email appears to show him forwarding Epstein a report on official visits to Southeast Asia; another sought Epstein’s views on investment in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. The charge isn’t trafficking or conspiracy; it’s a common-law offense—not even defined in statute—alleging that a public officer willfully abused the trust of his position. King Charles III says the arrest causes him “the deepest concern.”

The Epstein files have now implicated dozens of powerful figures in conduct that ranges from questionable to sordid—powerful men visiting Epstein’s notorious island, emailing, joking about “harems” and “trouble”—all after Epstein’s 2008 conviction. None of it obviously criminal, though. The United States Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said he anticipated no further charges under American law. Now there’s an arrest—in the United Kingdom—not for trafficking or any crime, conspiratorial or otherwise. It’s for “misconduct in public office.” The broader picture around the Epstein files remains as it was: “awful but lawful.” And now no less awful. … See “A detective’s inventory.”

Meanwhile

• The insurrection’s answer. A court in Seoul sentenced South Korea’s former president Yoon Suk Yeol to life in prison on Thursday for leading an insurrection during his December 2024 martial-law declaration. Prosecutors sought death; the judge said Yoon’s deployment of soldiers to the National Assembly by helicopter aimed to paralyze the legislature. South Korea hasn’t sentenced a leader for insurrection in 30 years. The citizens who barricaded parliament that night watched the sentence on screens outside the courthouse.
• Peace, incorporated. U.S. President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace held its first meeting on Thursday, drawing envoys from 45 countries to the renamed Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace. Nine member states pledged US$7 billion for Gaza reconstruction; the U.S. added US$10 billion. Five countries committed troops to a stabilization force. Trump said the board would “almost be looking over the United Nations.” Western allies, including the U.K. and Germany, attended as observers only. Israel’s cabinet secretary said Hamas has 60 days to disarm—starting, possibly, today.
• A diagnosis, 12,000 years later. The Pentagon moves additional carrier groups and fighter jets toward Iran as officials said strikes could come within days … Washington announces it will withdraw all remaining troops from Syria over the next two months, ending a 12-year presence. … Peru’s Congress elects its eighth president in a decade—José María Balcázar, 83, an interim leader 53 days before elections. … Poland bans Chinese-made vehicles from all military bases, citing onboard sensors capable of “uncontrolled data acquisition.” … & DNA from a 12,000-year-old double burial in southern Italy confirms a mother and daughter shared a rare genetic growth disorder—the oldest clinical diagnosis ever made from ancient DNA.

Feature

‘Dependencies have become liabilities’

Why is Silicon Valley fighting with the EU? Anu Bradford on how American tech companies are enlisting the White House against European regulation.

In early February, the Paris prosecutor’s cybercrime unit raided X’s French headquarters as part of an investigation into suspected illegalities, including data harvesting and complicity in the possession of child sexual abuse images. French authorities summoned X’s owner, Elon Musk, and former CEO Linda Yaccarino to testify. Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office is separately probing X’s AI chatbot Grok over its “potential to produce harmful sexualised image and video content.”

Musk shot back, calling the raid a “political attack.”

This follows a series of high-profile clashes between European authorities and American tech companies. Since the European Union’s Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act took effect in 2023 and 2024, respectively, the EU has hit American tech companies with serious fines. In April, it fined Meta and Apple a combined €700 million. In September, it fined Google €2.95 billion for violating antitrust rules. And in December, it fined X €120 million.

Last summer, Donald Trump warned Europe, “Show respect to America and our amazing Tech Companies or, consider the consequences!” In December, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said that unless the EU and European states back off, “the United States will have no choice but to begin using every tool at its disposal to counter these unreasonable measures.” Days later, the U.S. State Department imposed visa sanctions on five European officials, including former EU commissioner Thierry Breton, who spearheaded the Digital Services Act.

Now what?

Anu Bradford is a professor at Columbia Law School and the author of The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World and Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology. Bradford says American tech giants have gone from reluctantly complying with European regulations to actively fighting them. For years, these companies would comply—they might lobby against laws or challenge them in court, but they eventually fell into line. Now, the Europeans have begun to realize that fines alone won’t bring truly enormous companies to heel, and they’re considering more radical measures. Meanwhile, the American tech companies have realized they can’t bend European regulation on their own—so they’ve enlisted the White House. And behind all of it: a growing European realization that reliance on American tech may have become a strategic vulnerability …

Books

‘Through organizing the entire society’

How fascist is India’s Hindutva movement? Luna Sebastian’s Fascism in India: Race, Caste, and Hindutva.

In 2019, India’s current home minister, Amit Shah—then president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—likened Muslim migrants to “termites in the soil of Bengal” and promised the government would pick them up and “throw them into the Bay of Bengal.” Leading up to India’s 2024 election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to Muslims as “infiltrators” who have “too many children.” He told supporters that the oppositional Congress Party seeks to “take” the property of lower-caste Hindus and “give it to their vote bank, and you know who Congress’s favorite vote bank is.” Then–information minister Anurag Thakur spelled it out: Congress “wants to give your children’s property to Muslims.”

What’s with this rhetoric?

New music

‘What’s Right?’

The Chicago four-piece Ratboys have a great new album out, Singin’ to an Empty Chair—a title nodding to the Gestalt-therapy technique of confronting yourself through a seat no one’s sitting in. Produced by Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie, it’s guitar-based indie rock with real care in the song structures and Julia Steiner’s great way with lyrics.