As Prince Harry is reportedly set for another court hearing amid his ongoing visa row, President Donald Trump has made it clear he won’t be ‘protecting’ the Duke
Conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation has reopened its case to have Prince Harry’s private immigration papers made public.
Now, the first court hearing since President Donald Trump’s inauguration will take place, with the organisation arguing that the US Government should release records about the Duke of Sussex’s US application visa, which allows him to remain in California, to show whether or not he disclosed his past drug use.
Under US law, visa applicants must declare whether they have taken drugs and can be deported if they fail to do so. Prince Harry previously admitted to having recreationally used marijuana, cocaine and psychedelic mushrooms in his bestselling memoir Spare, in which he detailed how he’d turned to drugs as a means of dealing with his traumatic childhood.
In one passage of the 2023 book Spare, Prince Harry opened up about his experiences of trying cocaine as a “deeply unhappy 17-year-old boy”. He confessed: “It wasn’t much fun, and it didn’t make me particularly happy, as it seemed to make everyone around me, but it did make me feel different, and that was the main goal. Feel. Different.”
President Donald Trump has made his feelings on the Sussexes crystal clear (
Image:
AFP via Getty Images)
This is according to a ruling seen by Newsweek, which reveals that Judge Carl J Nichols has now ordered Heritage lawyers and Prince Harry to meet at a federal court in Washington DC on Wednesday, February 5. The right-wing think tank previously lost a case back in September, after it brought a lawsuit against the Department for Homeland Security after a Freedom of Information request for the release of Prince Harry’s papers was rejected, with Judge Nichols ruling that the documents should remain private.
The newly reinstated President Trump has previously made his feelings on the matter, prior to Judge Nichols’ first ruling. In an interview with the Express US, POTUS vowed: “I wouldn’t protect him. He betrayed the Queen. That’s unforgivable. He would be on his own if it was down to me.”
Mere days later, President Trump was quizzed about his stance on the Sussexes during a GB News interview with Nigel Farage. When Farage asked whether Prince Harry would be afforded any “special privileges”, President Trump asserted: “No. We’ll have to see if they know something about the drugs, and if he lied they’ll have to take appropriate action.”
Clarifying what exactly the twice-impeached president meant by that, Mr Farage then asked: “Appropriate action? Which might mean…not staying in America?” On this point, President Trump responded: “Oh, I don’t know. You’ll have to tell me. You just have to tell me. You would have thought they would have known this a long time ago.”
Harry has previously spoken candidly about his recreational drug use (
Image:
Getty Images for The New York Ti)
However, prior to the US election results, President Trump’s son Eric Trump suggested Harry’s visa would be safe because, in his view, “no one cares” about the Duke, or his “pretty unpopular” wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.
Speaking to MailOnline, Eric said: “Truthfully, I don’t give a damn about Prince Harry, and I don’t think this country does either. My father loved the Queen, and I think the monarchy is an incredibly beautiful thing.” He added: “I don’t give a damn if he did drugs. It means nothing. I can tell you that our father and our entire family have tremendous respect for the monarchy.”
In the days leading up to the January 20 inauguration, the Sussexes took aim at Meta, the firm behind social media giants such as Facebook and Instagram, after it scrapped its fact-checking programme. In a statement shared via their official website, Harry and Meghan asked Meta to prioritise public safety and address escalating incidents of hate speech.
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In their statement, the Duke and Duchess remarked that the decision was “undoubtedly responding to political winds”, which one PR expert has interpreted as a veiled reference to President Trump. Warning that the 78-year-old Republican leader could find these comments “quite incendiary”.
PR expert Nick Ede told Newsweek: “Unfortunately, there could be a repercussion from this, especially with Trump, you know, poking this ginormous bear and not expecting something back from it. Trump will see this as a battle he wants to win and potentially will target them in whatever way he does it.”
Mr Ede continued: “This is quite incendiary in that respect because we know Trump is not a fan of theirs, and this could be a way to negatively affect them. I don’t think this is the last of this, and I don’t think it will stop.”
The differences of opinion between President Trump and the Sussexes were made clear during the 2020 election race against former President Biden. At the time of the campaign, the Duke and Duchess appeared in a video encouraging Americans to “vote against hate speech”.
Although no specific names were mentioned in the clip, these remarks were viewed as an endorsement of President Biden. President Trump later spoke out against the Sussexes in more vocal terms, declaring he was “no fan” of Meghan.
