Meghan Markle helped sparked probe into queen’s cousin allegedly selling access to Putin

A British newspaper said Meghan's privacy case first drew attention to questions about members of the royal family trying to cash in on their connections to the monarchy. 

In another scandal to rock the British royal family, a newspaper’s undercover investigation has made startling claims that Prince Michael of Kent, Queen Elizabeth’s 78-year-old cousin, was allegedly and secretly trying to trade on his links Russia’s Vladimir Putin for personal profit.

The investigation by the Sunday Times and Channel 4’s “Dispatches” program centers around a recorded Zoom meeting involving Michael, his friend and business partner, Simon Isaacs, and two undercover journalists posing as executives of a fictitious South Korean company. The faux executives wanted to hire Michael to help them make contacts with the Kremlin to further their gold investment business in Russia. Michael took the call, even as Putin’s regime is considered the No. 1 threat to Britain’s national security, the Sunday Times added.

The newspaper suggested that its investigation may not have happened unless Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, had drawn attention to questions about whether members of the royal family were trying to cash in on their connections to the monarchy.

The Times said the U.S.-born wife of Prince Harry brought focus to Michael’s commercial dealings in court documents she filed last year. She was arguing that there was a precedent for royals earning money in the private sector.

The documents were part of Meghan’s privacy lawsuit against the Mail on Sunday, in which her lawyers said that she and Harry should have been able to earn money from jobs outside the royal family without having to give up their royal duties. The lawyers pointed out that Michael, as well as Harry’s cousins, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, earn their own money.

Last year, Meghan’s critics in the British press chastised her for drawing other royal family members into her court case. These critics already were angry at the disrespect they believe she and Harry showed the queen by stepping away from royal duties, moving to California and signing a multimillion deal with Netflix, which produces “The Crown.” That outrage increased in March after Meghan and Harry accused the royal family of racism, cruelty and dysfunction in their bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey.

Meghan’s defenders, as well as those who’d like to see the monarchy abolished, are likely to thank her for focusing attention on the royal family’s apparent hypocrisy and the extent to which some members, including Michael, may allegedly exploit for personal gain their already privileged status in UK society.

Meghan’s defenders already were crying hypocrisy for how she and Harry have been treated by the royal establishment, compared to Prince Andrew and other family members, who they say have disgraced the monarchy much more.

Now Meghan’s fans can cite Michael in their complaints, although his wife, the Princess Michael of Kent, has long been in their cross-hairs. The princess notoriously insulted Meghan, who is mixed-race, when she wore a racist blackamoor brooch to the queen’s annual Christmas banquet in 2017, shortly after Meghan and Harry became engaged. The princess ended up apologizing for causing “offense” to Harry’s fiancée.

Michael and his wife have long lived in Kensington Palace. The prince also has represented the queen at events and has retained his private security and military titles, according to the Sunday Times. Meanwhile, Meghan and Harry had to give up representing the queen and lost their private security, and Harry was stripped of his military titles, the Sunday Times added.

Then again, Michael does not receive any public funding from the sovereign grant, and he has to fully support himself through his “consultancy company,” said Chris Ship, the royal editor for ITV. Michael also pays rent at market prices for his apartment at Kensington Palace.

Still, the revelations about Michael from the Sunday Times and Channel 4 investigation are likely to intensify concern about damage to the monarchy’s reputation. It also sounds like other family members were potential targets of the investigation — possibly Beatrice and Eugenie — given that they were named in Meghan’s court documents.

The Sunday Times said the contacts with Michael and his friend were part of a wider undercover investigation into royal family members believed to be using their connections to add to their wealth. Three other royals turned down the offer of work from the House of Haedong, the fictitious South Korean company that contacted Michael. One family member did not reply.

According to The Sunday Times, their undercover reporters claimed that the House of Haedong “was looking to hire a royal to market its investment service” and wrote in a letter that it “was planning to set up a Moscow office and offered to hire the prince as an adviser to use his ‘excellent contacts’ in Russia.”

“I’ve traveled extensively around Russia for many different reasons, but mainly on business,” Michael told the undercover journalists on the Zoom call, clips of which were posted by The Sunday Times. He was speaking on the Zoom call from his apartment in Kensington Palace.

Michael has reportedly made “an awful lot of money” in Russia and is treated with great reverence in the country partly because of his familial connection and resemblance to Nicholas II, the murdered last tsar of Russia. His maternal and paternal grandfathers are first cousins of Nicholas. He also has regularly visited Russia since the collapse of the Society Union in 1992 and speaks fluent Russian. In 2009, he received “the Order of Friendship from President (Dimitri) Medvedev, one of the highest orders in Russia, for his work on Anglo-Russo relations,” his website said.

After Michael left the Zoom call with the faux executives, Isaacs — whose title is the Marquess of Reading — continued the meeting and appeared to promise access to Putin and his associates. He said a four or five-day trip to Russia by the prince would cost around $70,000.

Isaacs said on the video: “If (Prince Michael) is representing the House of Haedong, he could mention that to Putin and Putin would find the right person who is interested in South Korea or interested in gold. It just opens the door, you know, which is so helpful.”

In a statement to the Sunday Times, Prince Michael’s office denied he has a special relationship with Putin. “They last met in 2003 and he has had no contact with him or his office since then,” Michael’s office said.

The statement also suggested that Michael’s friend, the Marquess of Reading, “made suggestions that Prince Michael would not have wanted, or been able, to fulfill.”

“As it standard practice, Michael’s private secretary made it clear to the company’s representatives during their conversations that nothing could proceed without the agreement of the British embassy and the help of the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce,” the statement concluded.